Top 10 Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns (and the companies behind them)
Hi, I'm Kieran. I worked at an equity crowdfunding platform, Wefunder, from 2017-2020. Having talked with thousands of founders considering whether to raise on Wefunder vs. another platform, I know the prestige associated with a platform, just like an investor, is a huge deciding factor for the best companies. You want to raise money alongside other good companies. So, I compiled a list of the best companies that have used equity crowdfunding to raise capital as of April 2023 to help you evaluate which platform is best for you.
What is Equity Crowdfunding?
Equity crowdfunding, commonly called Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF), is a way for businesses to raise money. From 1933 to 2016, investing in a private company was illegal unless you were wealthy. Equity crowdfunding made it so anyone, including non-accredited investors, could invest in private companies.
Criteria
The amount of capital a company raises during its equity crowdfunding round does not determine how good the company is. For example, some companies purposely cap the amount they raise during an equity crowdfunding campaign not to dilute themselves more than they need to. Some factors that I considered, but are not limited to, include:
- Key metrics – revenue, users, growth, etc. at the time of the raise
- Total funding amount
- Instituional investors
- Valuation
- Company progress since its equity crowdfunding campaign
- Team
Platform Breakdown
I tried my best to be objective and looked at companies on all platforms, but only two equity crowdfunding platforms featured top companies for my list:
- Wefunder - 9 companies in the top 10 + 7 honorable mentions
- Republic - 1 company in the top 10 + 2 honorable mentions
- SeedInvest - 1 honorable mention
Top 10 Campaigns
Without further adieu, these are the best companies to raise via equity crowdfunding:
1. Mercury
In August 2022, Mercury, the company that provides banking for startups, raised $4,914,037 from 2,453 investors on Wefunder. Since launching in April 2019, Mercury has landed 40K+ customers with an impressive roster of top startups, including Sprig, LunchClub, and Mighty. The company opened up the equity crowdfunding raise alongside their successful $120 million Series B, bringing their total funding up to $152.2 million, from top institutional investors Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), CRV, and Sapphire. If you've been paying attention to the news – SVB collapsed on March 10th, 2023 – sending shock waves through the banking system. Mercury mobilized quickly by launching Vault, promising up to $5 million in FDIC insurance (12x the typical coverage) to capitalize on the demand from customers to find a safe place to put their money. The company has added $2 billion+ in deposits and thousands of new accounts since SVB fell. Mercury's combination of solid demand from reputable customers, significant interest from professional investors, and notable progress since they last raised capital makes Mercury the top company to raise money with an equity crowdfunding campaign.
2. Replit
In May 2022, Replit, the platform for collaborative coding, raised $5,240,140 from 2,589 investors on Wefunder. Founded in April 2016, Replit struggled to attract professional investors early on, getting rejected by Y Combinator, the top startup accelerator, three times before getting accepted. While professional investor interest in the company was slow, the metrics were not. Within a few months, Replit had already reached a $150K revenue run rate and 750K users when they finally got accepted to Y Combinator. The user growth was so noteworthy over the next couple of years that Paul Graham, Founder of Y Combinator, tweeted about their hockey stick user growth. When they launched their equity crowdfunding on Wefunder, they were coming off a year where they had just doubled their users again to 10 million and raised an $80 million Series B from top institutional investors Coatue, Bloomberg Beta, and Andreessen Horowitz. With incredible momentum, Replit is ready for even more growth. The company made news recently by partnering with Google to take on Microsoft-owned Github. Replit's tremendous growth makes it a clear pick to be one of the top companies to launch an equity crowdfunding campaign.
3. Maven
In January 2021, Maven, the online cohort-based courses company, raised $726,980 from 479 investors on Republic. Since its founding in 2020, Maven has scaled to 400+ courses on the site, with notable tech influencers, such as Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano (crypto), and professionals Shreyas Doshi (product management), Dave Kline (management), Amanda Nativida (content marketing) electing to teach on Maven instead of hosting the course themselves or on alternative platforms like MasterClass. While the growth is significant, this is a team bet more than anything. Maven is founded by Gagan Biyani and Wes Kao. Gagan was previously the co-founder of Udemy, another online courses company that went IPO in October 2021 at a price of $29/share and a valuation of $3.8 billion. Equally impressive in her own right, Wes founded altMBA, an intensive, 4-week online leadership workshop. She also created courses in the past with Aaron Rasmussen, Founder of MasterClass, for his new company Outlier. With so much expertise in ed-tech and building cohort-based courses, the two make the perfect founding team to build this company. Following their seed round led by First Round Capital and its successful equity crowdfunding raise, Maven closed a $20M Series A from Andreessen Horowitz in May 2021. While still relatively early, Maven's killer team makes it my third-best company to raise capital using equity crowdfunding.
4. Beta Bionics
In 2016, Beta Bionics, the company behind the world's first bionic pancreas, raised $1 million from 718 investors on Wefunder. Beta Bionics launched on May 16th, the first-day equity crowdfunding was live to the public, making it one of the first successful raises in the industry. Unlike software companies that can highlight users, growth, and revenue metrics, Beta Bionics just had completed human clinical trials and additional clinical data to support the investment. The reason they were able to get up to the $1 million mark was the social nature of the investment – people wanted to invest in something that might help people with type 1 diabetes – and the emotional connection to Edward Damiano, the Founder of Beta Bionics, who started the company since his son developed type 1 diabetes at 11 months of age. With a tear-inducing story like that, it's easy to get behind the company emotionally. But even it that's not enough to convince you, the company's performance since their equity crowdfunding raise should. In February 2022, the company closed a $57 million Series C round from investors Soleus Capital and Perceptive Advisors after receiving a breakthrough device designation for its iLet, which fast-tracks them on its way to FDA approval.
5. Levels
In February 2022, Levels, the health platform that provides real-time feedback based on your diet and lifestyle choices, raised $4,999,989 from 1,440 investors on Wefunder. Sam Corcos and Andrew Conner, the Founders of Levels, started the company in 2019 after seeing the data behind the metabolic health crisis. At the time of their equity crowdfunding raise, the company had already racked up 15,000 beta users and a sizeable waitlist of 155,000 people. In addition, they built a huge and scalable distribution advantage to bolster their growth, with 150+ well-researched articles responsible for driving over 1.5 million page views. Since raising 5 million on Wefunder in 6 hours, Levels has closed a $38 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz and Shrug Capital and a $7 million Series A extension. More important than any of this, Levels successfully launched a hardware product. Hardware is freaking hard! Most companies fail before they get a hardware product to market because of all the upfront costs and technical challenges. However, the company successfully got its product to market and is slightly more derisked. This should assure investors that Levels is a great bet to tackle the metabolic health crisis.
6. Meow Wolf
In August 2017, Meow Wolf, the immersive art experience, raised $1,322,006 from 621 investors on Wefunder. If you have never been, think Disneyland meets a psychedelic funhouse. Meow Wolf began as an informal DIY artist collective in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2008. From there, the group began building large-scale immersive attractions, starting with its flagship, the House of Eternal Return, a 20,000-square-foot facility. At the time of their equity crowdfunding raise, Meow Wolf was still just based in Santa Fe, coming off $7.7 million in revenue and 500,000 visitors in 2017. Today, as of April 2023, Meow Wolf has locations in Las Vegas and Denver and plans to add another exhibit in Grapevine Mills (Texas) by the Summer of 2023. Meow Wolf is the only non-tech company that made my list, but it belongs here just as much as any other company because of its chances to have an outsized outcome. So much so that The New York Times compared Meow Wolf to Disneyland. In addition, the company has secured $185.2 million in total funding and attracted support from investors like George R. R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones.
7. Synthesis
In August 2022, Synthesis, the company building an education system for super collaborators, raised $2,987,382 from 1,125 investors on Wefunder. Earlier that year, Synthesis shared in a blog post that they raised $12M from Balaji Srinivasan, the CTO of Coinbase, and Amjad Masad, the CEO of Replit. More importantly, they announced they had grown revenue 5x in a little over a year. Synthesis is another excellent team bet. Synthesis was founded by Joshua Dahn, the ex-Founder and Executive Director of Ad Astra School – an experimental school on the campus of SpaceX. Now, why is this important? He designed the school with insights and support from Elon Musk. Whether you like Elon Musk or not, he is smart and has had tremendous business success across Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. Joshua has been in this ed-tech space for over a decade, making him an incredible candidate to lead Synthesis to capture the market demand for a better education system. Synthesis has pivoted a few times since its initial launch, so this might be a risky inclusion since they may not have product-market-fit yet, but I think the team pushes it over the top. If Synthesis hasn't figured it out yet, they will most defintely in the future.
8. Roam Research
In May 2021, Roam Research, the note-taking tool for networked thought, raised $994,295 from 756 investors on Wefunder. Roam Research was a hot company from the start. Before their equity crowdfunding round, they raised a $9 million seed round from top-tier venture capital firms True Ventures and Lux Capital in September 2020. What made the raise notable was that they could attract that caliber of investors at a valuation of $200 million, ~25x the median valuation of most seed rounds. Another attractive thing about Roam Research's outlook as a company is the market. Notable competitors Notion and Coda are valued over $1 billion and have been able to attract investors throughout their growth, making it plausible that Roam Research will be able to do the same if they hit their milestones. Of course, hot companies don't always work out, but the main reason why Roam Research deserves to be on this list is that their customers love them. For example, Chelsea Voss, a member of the technical staff at OpenAI, had this to say about the company "The thing that's delighted me most about Roam has been how having it open in a tab affects my entire attitude about research. I feel like I'm playing learning: the video game." Additionally, many of my friends and former coworkers swear by the product. I can't wait to see how Roam Research progresses over the next few years.
9. Doorvest
After wrapping up a quick $198,000 raise in December of 2021, Doorvest, the homeownership investment platform, launched a new equity crowdfunding campaign and is set to close on April 7th with over $5,360,480 from 309 investors committed at the time of this post. Since the campaign page is still live, it's easy to see that customers want what Doorvest is building – highlighting 10.5x year-over-year growth and 18% of their first-time homeowners already using Doorvest for their second purchase in such a short time frame. The company has also attracted $22 million in equity and $75 million in credit facilities that it can use to supercharge its growth, deepen its technology moats, and expand to new markets. Only time will tell whether Doorvest can align incentives better than any other homeownership investing platform on the market. If it does, the company may generate more value than the other companies on this list.
10. Substack
Substack, the publishing platform for subscription newsletters, is testing the waters (securing verbal commitments but no investments yet) and already has $7,050,952 in interest reserved by 6,209 investors. While not all investors will commit when Substack adds financials to their Wefunder offering, you can expect enough to commit for them to safely reach the $5 million max raise mark sometime in April 2023. Substack is a somewhat attractive company, but it's less likely to break out compared to other companies higher on this top companies list, given its business model and industry. As of April 2023, Substack has 35 million active subscriptions, 2 million paid subscriptions, and readers have paid writers more than $300 million through Substack. It'll be interesting to see what the financials look like later this month. Still, Substack is getting some flack already for raising at a very high valuation relative to its competitors based on the company's metrics. Even some Substack fans have tweeted about their discomfort with the raise at this price.
Honorable Mentions
11. Ember Fund
Why it missed the cut: Ember Fund is a good investment as of now, having been marked up 10x since its Republic round. Still, it's too early to tell if it's a good company. Moreover, it'll be harder for them to raise significant follow-on capital with the current state of the crypto market, given the mass exodus of talent to artificial intelligence and other industries after the industry's initial craze.
12. Fathom Video
Why it missed the cut: Fathom Video has excellent reviews, making it a close call for the top ten, but it's still too early to tell.
13. LPPFusion
Why it missed the cut: The LPPFusion team has made a ton of progress since incorporation in 2003, but still has yet to be able to commercialize its fusion technology. It's a fusion reactor, people, a very tough business. Give them some more time to see what happens to them. The fact that they are still alive is impressive in my eyes.
14. Atom Limbs
Why it missed the cut: Another cool one, but hardware is hard, and they have yet to get their product to market. However, Atom Limbs has all the makings to crack the top 10 soon – an impressive Founder who sold his last company to Amazon, top-tier investors like Village Capital, and a world-class leadership team from Apple, Tesla, Nike, Intel & IDEO.
15. Heliogen
Why it missed the cut: Heliogen went public in 2021 at a $2 billion valuation. However, the company is now worth only $46.55 million as of April 1st, 2023. It tells you all you need to know.
16. Gumroad
Why it missed the cut: While Gumroad's equity crowdfunding raise is considered one of the most successful raises ever, securing $5 million in 12 hours, the company is no longer venture-scale. Sahil Lavingia, the Founder of Gumroad, admitted this in a blog entitled Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company. So, while Gumroad may still provide value to the creators they serve, it will most likely have a small business outcome rather than a startup outcome.
17. Humphry Slocombe
Why it missed the cut: While Humphry Slocombe is a notable brand for any ice cream lover in San Francisco, it's in a very competitive market and will need to distinguish itself to have a sizeable outcome down the road.
18. IQ.Wiki (formerly Everipedia)
Why it missed the cut: IQ.Wiki secured a $30 million Series A in funding headed by Galaxy Digital's EOS.io Ecosystem Fund, but there has been little to no news since. Since the company is an online crypto encyclopedia, it was surprising to see just how little monthly traffic they get – 10.5K monthly visits as of April 2023, according to Similarweb.
19. UpCounsel
Why it missed the cut: UpCounsel raised $20 million+ from notable investors, including Menlo Ventures and Homebrew, but ended up getting acqui-hired at the last minute for pennies on the dollar from Enduring Ventures.
20. Modern Times
Why it missed the cut: Modern Times is one of the most recognizable brands to raise via equity crowdfunding, so I think at least worthy of mentioning, but it missed the cut for top companies because it was acquired for pennies on the dollar, reportedly $15M by Maui Brewing Co., after having to close 4 locations shortly after their fundraise. A sale of that size for a company of Modern Times' stature indicates it was most likely close to bankruptcy.
