# Chisos

Fast, flexible capital for great entrepreneurs. More reliable returns for investors.

## Elevator pitch
Chisos develops software and raises funds in order to provide capital to idea- and early stage startups using a new investment approach called a Convertible Income Share Agreement, or CISA - a unique combination of equity and an income share agreement.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/chisos
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:79644
- Last updated: 2026-06-09T05:00:25Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-10T02:44:03Z

## Quick facts
- Addressing the $4T blindspot in startup financing by backing high-potential, overlooked founders.
- Unlike banks, we evaluate founders based on future potential, not just assets & financial history.
- Chisos’ Convertible Income Share Agreement uncaps equity upside for investors & flexibility for founders.
- Wefunder investors receive 3X PREFERRED waterfall position for profit distributions.
- Raised $550K pre-seed operating capital & $500K Fund I; currently raising $10mm Fund II.
- Developed platform with proprietary underwriting algorithm; automated application & diligence process.
- 200% online application increase in 2021; 10 completed investments to date.
- Proof: ~$20K ISA repayments; Returning ~10% of Invested Capital to Fund I LPs in 2021 (est.).

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:42802: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:42803: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
Did you know that personal savings, credit cards, and family contributions make up 83% of all startup funding? Or that, according to a Morgan Stanley report, traditional VCs have a $4T blindspot when it comes to women- and minority-led businesses?Chisos provides a unique source of alternative financing for overlooked and under represented entrepreneurs. Your investment will help build the platform to connect great potential founders with capital.Fewer than 23% of founders who receive VC funding are minorities, and only 2% of all VC funding goes to women-led groups. Meanwhile, new ventures can’t qualify for bank loans. Chisos solved this problem by pioneering an innovative investment approach: the Convertible Income Share Agreement (CISA). The CISA purposefully combines the best features of two commonly known instruments, SAFEs and ISAs. How? We receive an ISA from the founder and a SAFE in the founder’s business. Founders get the capital they need to start and grow their business, and investors benefit from a de-risked approach with uncapped upside. Win-win. We’ve raised $550K pre-seed operating capital, $500k in Fund I investment capital, and we’re currently raising $10mm in Fund II. More than 350 founders have applied for capital through our online app, (over 60 alone in March 2021), with 10 investments complete. We developed a FinTech platform with our proprietary underwriting algorithm, as well as an automated application and diligence process to source, underwrite and service thousands of applications and hundreds of investments.More individuals are seeking to start their own businesses; this translates to demand for new business funding of $3 billion+ per year in the U.S. alone. Millennials and Gen Zers are 188% more likely than baby boomers to have the aim of creating a side business. New entrepreneurship will surge, and we’ll be there to meet the moment.Our CEO, Will Stringer, has been featured in TechCrunch’s “12 ‘flexible VCs’ who operate where equity meets revenue share,” as well as on Angels and Entrepreneurs, S²TV and the Opt Out Life podcast.We have ten (10) portfolio companies in our first fund, and two more in diligence.Over 2/3rds of the portfolio companies are led by underrepresented founders. Our Investments in each range from $15K to $50K. A third of the portfolio is already making regular ISA payments, and the first to achieve a Qualified Financing to reduce the ISA was Re-Nuble Inc. (in November 2020).Our powerhouse team is backed by a world-class board of advisors with experience growing multi-billion dollar businesses. Including:We’re making first money capital investing better for founders and investors. Here’s how we’re founder-friendly:When selecting investments, a founder’s financial background is only one—but not the sole—factor used to determine eligibility. We offer flexible start-and-end ISA payback with an equity clawback option (up to ⅔), plus the 1X payoff cap with a Qualified Financing. Founders also get a clean cap table, as the ISA obligation is decoupled from the equity (SAFE).With Phase II underway, we are operating as an asset manager to get capital into the hands of entrepreneurs using our CISA funding instrument.Phase III takes the FinTech infrastructure built and utilized by Chisos, and offers it to other entities and investors (universities, corporate innovation, municipalities & individuals) for their own early stage / CISA investing efforts.Our end goal is to take the CISA global, enable undervalued entrepreneurs anywhere to leverage their own potential to raise that first investment check. This outcome creates a global fintech organization with significant shareholder value.There’s no better time than the present to invest with us! Income share agreements are gaining traction in the US, predominantly in the education sector. 2020 ended with over $500 million in ISA projections, which included the job training and philanthropy spaces, respectively. We fit perfectly within the current startup ecosystem, partnering symbiotically with upstream and downstream ecosystem players.Over the next five years, we project tremendous revenue growth, both in terms of asset management and licensing/SaaS fees. The latter category represents the bulk of those gains, with over 75% of a projected total of more than $45M coming from licensing fees in 2026. In that same timeframe, we expect asset management revenue to double every year from 2024 to 2026, reaching the $10M mark by the fifth year. (NOTE: these figures are forward-looking projections that cannot be guaranteed.)*This Investment Offering is Not a FundThis offering is for convertible securities in Chisos LLC. Chisos LLC builds software and employs people to manage the operations and inform investment decisions of underlying fund and SPV capital vehicles. Chisos LLC is not a fund and does not invest in underlying assets. All underlying CISA investments are made from the fund vehicles managed and overseen by Chisos LLC. Accredited investors interested in learning more about our funds can email ir@chisoscapital.io.Rather than investing in just one of our funds, investors in this Reg CF campaign will have ownership in the upside across all of our current and future funds (in addition to all upside related to our CISA Servicing software activities). The "upside" of a fund is known as carried interest or carry where the owners (or GPs) of a fund keep ~20% of the profits from a fund once investors get their initial capital back. Currently, Chisos LLC and it’s investors receive the carried interest from Chisos Capital funds. The diagram below shows how Chisos benefits from underlying asset management activities and CISA servicing software activities.Chisos Convertible Note - Upon investing in Chisos LLC, Wefunder investors receive a convertible note with 6% interest that matures in March 2023. The interest on the note will build the value owed to the investor over the two-year period. At maturity OR at the time of a bona fide equity investment, the convertible note holder will be issued Preferred Units in Chisos LLC at a valuation equal to the conversion cap OR at a 10% discount to the price of the equity investment. The Preferred Units have a 3x preferred distribution feature which gives Wefunder investors preference with distributions compared to the Chisos team. For example, Wefunder investors receive 100% of their distributions back before the Chisos common unitholders receive any distributions. This 3x preferred distribution feature accelerates the timing of distributions and increases the IRR for Wefunder investors.For more information, see our Investment Memo at the link below.

## FAQ
1. **(1) I'm not sure it's explicitly stated, but are investors making an investment in Chisos LLC (the parent company) or one of the Chisos funds? (2) Can you provide a link to your Form C and financials? (3) Is the $15K mentioned in your pitch the entire amount of revenues earned...**
   - Hi Kevin - Thanks for the questions. We hope to have our site fully updated by the end of this week. Many of your questions will be answered with information included in that update. To answer your questions though - (1) WeFunder investors are investing in Chisos LLC, the parent company that manages underlying funds. Investors are NOT investing in a fund. (2) That information will be available on the campaign page soon. (3) The $15k (now $18k) is total ISA payments received by Fund I. The ini...
2. **Hello. Would you say that getting money from accredited investors for your funds is your main risk? If so, how will you mitigate this risk? Thanks!**
   - Hi - I would reframe the risk as attracting capital to our CISA investing model in general. As an asset manager, our goal is to raise capital that we then deploy into early-stage opportunities. That capital can be debt-based, equity-based or a hybrid of both. The structure of those capital vehicles can range from standard blind pool 2%/20% funds to geographic or industry focused SPVs. As "Alt-VC" or "flexible-VC" solutions continue to grow, we plan to monetize our CISA asset management softwa...
3. **Hi! How do you know there's a good opportunity for your fintech platform (CISA-based investment underwriting and servicing software)? Have you already had interest from any organization? How big do you think this opportunity will be? Thanks!**
   - Right now we are focused on building the infrastructure and raising early investment capital. Whilst we have had a number of very encouraging conversations on the broader fintech platform, they are early stage and exploratory in nature. These include preliminary conversations with university and university affiliated investor organizations and potential advisors that come from the edtech and online education space. These conversations have focused on ways to structure a fund, or an offering t...
4. **Hi, is this offering for a convertible note, or is this a priced round for LLC membership units? Also, what kind of income will unit holders be allocated, i.e. ordinary business income, carried interest capital gains, dividends, etc? Thanks!**
   - Hi Lucas - This offering is for a convertible note with a valuation cap of $15M ($12.5M for early-bird investors). Unfortunately, we are unable to give any type of tax guidance.
5. **Is the note convertible into common or preferred units of Chisos LLC?**
   - The note is set to convert into preferred units in Chisos LLC. These preferred units benefit from the accelerated (3X) distribution waterfall.

## Team
- William Stringer (Co-Founder & CEO)
- Stephen Grinalds (Co-Founder & CTO)
- Ken Aseme (CFO)
- Emmanuel de Boucaud (Capital Finance & Strategy)
- Claire Veuthey (Ecosystem and Partnerships)
- Kinsey Sullivan Wolf (CMO)

## Recent posts
- This campaign closes FOREVER at 11PM ET tonight. (2021-10-15T16:50:58Z)
- “Why I Invested in Chisos” (2021-10-14T17:58:54Z)
- Opportunity is Knocking, But Only for 3 More Days (2021-10-13T17:48:13Z)
- Announcing our Investment in Inclusology, an Automated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Software Solution (2021-10-12T15:38:15Z)
- 5 DAYS - This is your last chance to be an investing insider (2021-10-11T15:53:19Z)
- 7 DAYS LEFT - We’re Thrilled to Welcome Chrissybil Boulin to the Chisos Founder Club (2021-10-08T16:24:53Z)
- 8 DAYS LEFT and We're Achieving Real World Results: Re-Nuble Case Study (2021-10-07T18:26:04Z)
- This raise closes in 9 days! Don’t miss your chance to invest (2021-10-06T16:56:45Z)
- Chisos is proud to be a sponsor of StartupStarter’s Equity Crowdfunding Week (2021-10-03T12:55:32Z)
- Get a sneak peek at our Limited-Edition NFT! (2021-09-28T19:49:51Z)
- Announcing our Investment in Wynn’s Kitchen, a Line of Health-Focused Asian Condiments (2021-09-01T16:58:02Z)
- Announcing our Investment in Everlaunch, a Gamified Educational SaaS for Founders (2021-08-26T16:54:54Z)
- How to Invest in the Next Big Thing (Finimize x Chisos) - Webinar (2021-08-18T17:13:16Z)
- Let’s Talk Startups! New podcast episode with Anthony Vaughn and Chisos CEO, Will Stringer. (2021-08-11T16:57:24Z)
- Join us for a webinar with Finimize “How to Invest in the Next Big Thing” (2021-08-04T19:41:26Z)

## Q&A
- Q: Congrats on getting your first paying SaaS customer! It looks like you are hoping to have that be the primary revenue in the future-what is your expected customer acquisition cost for SaaS customers? How will you succeed in so many different markets for your SaaS product over the next few years? It is a hyper-competitive space! Also, with raising 10m for your second fund, do you think you will have challenges finding the right 15-50k opportunities to invest in? (200-500 required for 10m)
  - A: Hi Kevin - It is too early to determine our SaaS CaC. We've put zero marketing or BD resources behind the SaaS platform to date as we are currently focused on building out the entrepreneur pipeline of potential investment opportunities. This entrepreneur pipeline effort speaks to your last question: We've been busy building sourcing partnerships with accelerators/incubators/venture labs and other entities that work with entrepreneurs to ensure that we have a strong pipeline of entrepreneur applicants in order to deploy $10mm with 250 entrepreneurs ($40k avg. check size). In addition to partnerships we've been building our social media and press footprint to increase our inbound applicants. To your second question around competition and multiple markets - Our initial customer focus is on university and municipality related entities. These market players are all looking for ways to support entrepreneurship and boost innovation within their respective ecosystems. We don't see many good solutions to this problem today. Even the Federal government has approved large dollar amounts through the SSBCI program to support entrepreneurs. This is a very large opportunity not only in the U.S. but also globally. Our goal is to provide the investment platform solution that enables these entities to fund entrepreneurs using our flexible CISA terms.
- Q: (1) I'm not sure it's explicitly stated, but are investors making an investment in Chisos LLC (the parent company) or one of the Chisos funds? (2) Can you provide a link to your Form C and financials? (3) Is the $15K mentioned in your pitch the entire amount of revenues earned thus far? (4) What are projected revenues for 2021? (5) What's the rate on the convertible note? (6) What's the exit strategy?
  - A: Hi Kevin - Thanks for the questions. We hope to have our site fully updated by the end of this week. Many of your questions will be answered with information included in that update. To answer your questions though - (1) WeFunder investors are investing in Chisos LLC, the parent company that manages underlying funds. Investors are NOT investing in a fund. (2) That information will be available on the campaign page soon. (3) The $15k (now $18k) is total ISA payments received by Fund I. The initial revenue streams to Chisos LLC are from management fees based on the underlying funds AUM. (4) Projected revenues for 2021 are $120,000 from fund management fees. (5) Convertible note interest rate is 6%. (6) Investors may see returns from distributions of Chisos LLC profit over time and/or a sale of the CISA fintech platform at a future date.
- Q: Since the Form C hasn’t yet been posted, can you clarify the convertible note terms? Read it’s 6% interest and converts to preferred shares in the comments below, but what is the maturity date?
  - A: Hi Michael - Form C is located here (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1857408/000167025421000650/0001670254-21-000650-index.htm) & much of the Form C info can be found on the details page here (https://wefunder.com/chisos/details) The maturity date of the note is March 2023
- Q: HI Can you clarify the specifics of the revenue streams and the pricing? Looks like you plan on making money on Asset Management Fees and Equity sales? Interest from ISA? Looking for specific numbers.
  - A: Hi Eman - For the asset management activities we earn revenue in two way: 1) AUM/AUA (Assets Under Management/Advisory) based fees and 2) Profit share (carried interest). As a simple example: On a $25 million fund that returns 2.5x, Chisos would receive $500,000 per year in management fees (2%) and $7.5 million in carried interest (20%) over the life of the fund. For the SaaS platform we earn revenue based on usage (# of investments) of the platform. We have two different pricing mechanism: 1) ~$12-15/month/investment on the platform and 2) 5-8% of CISA profits collected.
- Q: The investment model is intriguing. However, I have a few questions regarding the model and the investment. 1. The ISAs are dependent on the earnings of the founder which is an optimal scenario is from the investee business. You're expecting 6-18 months of no payments on the ISAs. Isn't that a proxy for the businessés revenue itself? This seems like adding a layer of abstraction. 2. If you're mitigating the above risk with the founder's existing income source e.g. other employment income, wouldn't that represent a misalignment of interest between the SAFE and the ISA? You would want the founder to be full-time committed to growing the business to profit from the SAFE while your ISA would prefer steady income cashflows for profit which may favour having the founder continue being in their job or at least devoting substantial time to their job. 3. Is the ISA and SAFE decoupled? The Repayment Cap on the ISA is tiered dependent on a Qualified Financing. It sounds like the business has to be a party to the ISA. 4. I assume the preferred distribution (which converts on equity fundraise) might potentially change or be subordinate if the investors in the Chisos equity fundraise decide to impose a senior liquidation preference or senior preferred distribution?
  - A: Hi Kumara - Good questions. 1) We think there are a number of scenarios that will play in to the ISA payments. A founder may have a full-time job while starting a business on the side. A founder may be working on their startup full-time, but consulting on the side. A founder may decide the pay themselves from the business once revenues or additional financings support a salary. This is why we've designed the CISA...to provide capital to founder's in a flexible manner that will also attract investor capital in order to scale. 2) From our standpoint as an investor, we are investing in a founder's future success. As an investor in a CISA, there are 2 ways to earn a return on the investment capital - One is from the founder's income stream via the ISA and the other is through equity in their business. We think that if the founder is not making income, presumably they are growing their business, which benefits Chisos as an equity holder. If their business is growing slow or winding down then we assume the founder will find a way to earn income, which benefits Chisos as an ISA holder. Either way, Chisos will work with the founder to help them succeed because we are invested in their personal success. 3) The ISA and the SAFE are substantially decoupled. However, they do interact in two ways to the founder's benefit. If the business raises a Qualified Financing round, then the ISA repayment cap is reduced. Secondly, every ISA payment that is made will reduce the amount of equity owed to Chisos (equity clawback feature). 4) Our Operating Agreement prevents the issuance of senior units without the majority approval of Preferred Unit holders
- Q: Hi Guys, impressive funding engineering and revenue paths, congrats! Regarding the convertible note 6% interest, let's say someone "Wefunds" $10000 on March 2021, on March 2023 it would add up to $11200 roughly. Upon preferred units conversion of those $11200, against what valuation cap would that conversion be? $15M as announced in Wefunder? Or is the $15M valuation just for today and who knows what share of cap would $11200 be at that time?
  - A: Hi Fabrizio - Yes, the $15M ($12.5M for early bird investors) would be the valuation at note maturity. However, if a later round investor invests at a lower valuation and causes the notes to convert before maturity, then the note holders would also benefit from that lower valuation (plus an additional 10% discount). Likewise, if an investor invests at a higher valuation than $15M and causes the notes to convert before maturity, then the note holders would still convert at the $15M valuation cap.
- Q: last year I got a K-1, how would I get one this year
  - A: Hi Michael, We paid off the Convertible note in 2024. You will not receive any tax documents from Chisos for 2025. Thanks, Will
- Q: When will we be seeing more updates ?
  - A: Hi Fernando - We send out a monthly email update at the first of every month. You should be receiving it through the email you used to make the investment through WeFunder. Please let me know if you are not receiving the update emails.
- Q: Hello, If I invest today would I still qualify for the Early Bird terms. or I'm I to late for those terms?
  - A: Hi Fernando - Unfortunately the Early Bird terms are no longer available.
- Q: How the 3 Tires work, if I invest $100 here in which tire I will be added?
  - A: Hi Prathap - Investors receive the benefit of all tiers of distribution
- Q: Investment page shows 'card is declined' whom to contact in this case.
  - A: Hi Prathap - Send us an email at hello@chisos.io and we can get you in touch with the right people.
- Q: What type of securities offered in this investment round - Reg A, B, or C. And after maturity in 2023 we will receive interests and equity shares?
  - A: Hi Prathap - We are offering a convertible note through a Reg CF offering. After maturity the notes will convert to preferred units (equity) in the company.
- Q: Would chisos eliminate the need for angel investing
  - A: Hi Paul - We believe angel investing will still have its place in the startup funding landscape. We see Chisos as either an investment option before angel investors come in, or alongside angel investors.
- Q: What is your exit plan??
  - A: Hi Simpson - Our exit plan is twofold: 1) For our asset management business, we plan to continue raising and deploying capital into high quality investment opportunities. If we've done our job correctly, those investments will yield profits through fees and carry. We plan to distribute those profits as they are available. If an offer were to be made to acquire the asset management business, we would consider that liquidity path as well. 2) For our 3rd party software platform we plan to continue growing ARR in order to seek an exit for that business line in 3-5 years.
- Q: Total investments on the Wefunder page shows $407,372 with $68,605 early bird terms left but the early bird terms state that only the first $350,000 qualifies. Which is it?
  - A: Hi Frank - The ~$407k number is inclusive of investor reservations (indications of investment that have not yet been funded). The first $350,000 that completes and funds their investment receive the benefit of the early bird terms.