May 16 figures to be a huge day for startup founders.

Thanks to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which President Obama signed into law on April 5, 2012, more people will be able to invest in entrepreneurs through crowdfunding than heretofore. The goal of the legislation is to make it easier and faster for small businesses to get access to capital. (It took the SEC until December 2015 to promulgate and revise new rules.)

Up until now, if an entrepreneur wanted startup capital, he/she was constrained by either the size of their Rolodex or absence of already-existing relationships with angel investors or venture capitalists.

Now, entrepreneurs will be able to raise money by selling pieces of their companies to anyone with cash or interest. Prior to the rule change, entrepreneurs could only raise funds by equity crowdfunding from “accredited” investors, or individuals who met certain net-worth thresholds, i.e., at least $1 million.

This widening of the pool of individuals who can invest in startups essentially turns on a new spigot of capital for startups.

Those most likely to benefit from equity crowdfunding will be “mostly small businesses and startups that don’t have access to other capital and where a few hundred thousand dollars will have a meaningful impact,” Brandon Jenkins, COO of the real estate equity crowdfunding platform Fundrise told Entrepreneur.

The bottom line, then, is expanding access to crowdfunding will expand the amount of money being invested in startups.Experts say equity crowdfunding from unaccredited investors could potentially bring a couple billion dollars of additional capital into startups each year in the U.S., once the industry begins to mature and adapt to the new regulations.

This is especially good news for those Philly startups that aren’t necessarily getting the love from mainstream startup investors and who will now see opportunity in equity crowdfunding that they otherwise struggled to find. You may have a great idea for an app but if you don’t live in Austin, Boston, New York or Silicon Valley, it’s a lot harder to break into the VC community.