# State of Wefunder, Q2 2020 | Wefunder

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/128462
- Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:128462
- Published at: 2020-04-15 08:26:34 UTC
- Updated at: 2025-07-11 02:28:30 UTC

## Author
Nick Tommarello

## Subject
Wefunder

## Content
Dear Investors,This is one of those rare times when things went better than expected.&nbsp; That likely means we are soon due for a punch to the face.&nbsp; But right now, things are great.HighlightsQ1 2020 was our best ever in every growth metric.&nbsp; We had the most investments, new investors, and dollars invested ever.&nbsp;&nbsp;March 2020&nbsp;was our best ever in every growth metric.&nbsp;While the stock market was crashing and unemployment went past 10%, over $5.5M was invested in March.We added 4 new team members.&nbsp; We've hired 2 former YC founders and another BD hire.&nbsp; Jiwon Moon also came back to head up community.Startups now have&nbsp;one entry on the cap table.&nbsp; We've finally figured out how to get one entity on a cap table to represent the crowd, and have a single lead investor direct the vote of the securities.&nbsp; We are launching this on May 1. (We've spun up an SEC-registered transfer agent that can hold securities in "street name" on behalf of&nbsp;&nbsp;"beneficial owners".).&nbsp; This is a very big deal for our growth.&nbsp;&nbsp;Our pipeline of companies has increased 40% month over month.&nbsp; Thanks to both having one entry on the cap table - combined with the crisis - a lot more high-quality startups are looking to use Wefunder.&nbsp;&nbsp;We made progress on solving operational problems.&nbsp; We've built a lot more tooling to either prevent problems, or&nbsp;help our ops team handle them without engineering involvement.&nbsp; We're not where we need to be yet, but I expect a significant improvement to be noticeable over the next couple of months.&nbsp;&nbsp;Made Progress on&nbsp;K1's and Returns.&nbsp; We updated all of our fund investments and issued k1's almost on time (a few were a week late).&nbsp; We are almost done with a massive data collection project that will roll out estimated returns for every company funded on Wefunder.&nbsp;&nbsp;We had over 2500 companies apply to our Fight the Virus Challenge.&nbsp; Besides being inspiring, we expect many of the best of these companies to launch crowdfunding campaigns.&nbsp; The SEC issued proposed reforms.&nbsp; Among many needed reforms, they will increase the amount startups can raise from $1 million to $5 million per year.&nbsp;&nbsp;Inspiring Covid response.&nbsp; Our team switched priorities 180 degrees&nbsp;in days after it became obvious we were in a once-in-a-generation-crisis.&nbsp; I wrote this private&nbsp;letter to the team (I didn't make it public).&nbsp;&nbsp;How everyone has risen to the occasion to do their best to make a difference is inspiring.Going ForwardNail the inflection point.&nbsp;&nbsp;Our solution for one entity on a cap table - led by a Lead Investor who can earn performance-based compensation - is expected to triple the number of companies we launch per week over the summer.&nbsp; We are focused on making sure we can support this smoothly.&nbsp;Hire designers & engineers.&nbsp;&nbsp;We made less progress in Q1 on hiring.&nbsp; We are still actively looking to build up our product team.&nbsp;&nbsp;Continue to evaluate the economy.&nbsp; One big question mark for Wefunder is what happens in a recession or depression.&nbsp; It was always obvious that we'd get more companies that want to work with us. The question is, will investors continue to invest?&nbsp; So far, they have been, to an extent that has surprised me.&nbsp; However, when things are too good to be true, I continue to&nbsp; treat things&nbsp;skeptically.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There is no guarantee that investments will continue as unemployment ramps up to 20%.&nbsp; We are swimming against the tide by actively hiring as everyone else is running for the hills.&nbsp; We'd have to respond instantly if our revenue starts decreasing. However, we have enough cash in the bank - and a low enough cost structure&nbsp;- to survive into 2021 in a worst case scenario.&nbsp;Ways to HelpPlease refer any engineers or designers to our jobs page:&nbsp; https://wefunder.com/jobsPlease consider investing in our Pandemic Fund.&nbsp; We're in the process of selecting the top 1% of startups that applied.&nbsp;https://wefunder.com/fight-the-virus/topI'll end this update with our team the week before SF went into lockdown: