Short answer, no. The fundamental reason goes back to 1933/1934 when the modern rules of public offerings were enacted. To avoid investors being fleeced by unscrupulous business owners that falsely advertised the merits of their businesses, stringent rules were put in place for any offering of stock to the public. These rules continue to govern the behavior of publicly traded companies today. As a result of these regulations, stocks cannot be offered to a mass audience without those offering falling under the regulation of the SEC. Exceptions are made for small numbers (<99) of Accredited Investors ($250K annual income or > $1M liquid net worth, or something close to that), and others close to the company.
In short, a company cannot offer its stock broadly to the public without complying with the fairly onerous SEC provisions regulating public companies.
There was a company called Sprowtt at 2009's TC 50 that wants to do this.<p>They don't seem to be up and running though: <a href="http://www.techcrunch50.com/2009/sprowtt-marketplace/" rel="nofollow">http://www.techcrunch50.com/2009/sprowtt-marketplace/</a>
Sure, send a couple hundred bucks to the folks who hack on the open source software you use the most -- maybe add a request for an enhancement that would do you good, so you can be sure to get a return on your investment.
There are microlending sites like kiva.org.<p>However, if you're talking about investing in terms of buying stock in a typical technology startup sort of scenario, I doubt it. The legal hurdles are one thing, the other is that for each investor a company brings in, there are about $500-$1000 in related overhead costs. Just dealing with the legalities and the requirements for things like sending copies of the board meeting minutes to the investors make $200 investments a losing proposition.
You might be able to do this on <a href="http://www.secondmarket.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.secondmarket.com</a> depending on how established the startup is.<p>The site lets you trade all kinds of illiquid assets, including private company stock.
I had this idea a while back and wanted to create just that... so I bought <a href="http://ifundedthat.com" rel="nofollow">http://ifundedthat.com</a><p>I'll sell it to whomever feels like taking a stab at it :-)
What about startups outside US? Two programmers in México could eat (mostly tacos) a whole month for $200.<p>Maybe regulations for investing in latinamerican startups are looser?