# Brazen Update: 10AUG2021  | Brazen Bio

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/147508
- Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:147508
- Published at: 2021-08-10 20:19:09 UTC
- Updated at: 2025-07-09 03:20:40 UTC

## Author
Shawn Carbonell MD PhD

## Subject
Brazen Bio

## Content
Dear Brazen Army, Thank you! We did it! 🚀Raising a $250K friends and family/pre-pre-seed round in 2 months was a lofty goal. Afterall, we had a chicken-egg problem of no one knowing we even existed prior to June 2021. Further, it took me twice as long to raise $145K for my first startup, OncoSynergy, a decade ago. We were successful because of YOU. Today we have technology/regulations that didn't exist back then that allowed us to lay out our vision for Brazen Bio for all to see and we are grateful for it. Regulation CF 💰Raising investments from the crowd is completely disrupting the preseed funding landscape for startups. Now that it is possible to raise up to $5M per year through Regulation CF, entrepreneurs with customers and community are no longer dependent on institutional investors to raise early capital through even Series A. Although we were fortunate to have some options, we chose Reg CF as we believe it is a viable way for biotech startups at the earliest stages to get off the ground and wanted to lead by example for the founders in the Brazen Fellowship (our incubator).The Wefunder Platform 💻Keeping track of hundreds of investors is not easy and paying a law firm to do so would be cost prohibitive. The new online platforms like Wefunder and Republic are changing the game for crowdfunding. Although there were a few technical hiccups (made worse by the massive influx of deals after the March 15 rules went into effect), we worked closely with the Wefunder team including the Director of Launch, Jake Suggs, to get things done. We also had a fantastic assists from Kati Conley in Marketing and are still working closely with Greg Kuntjoro on the closing team. Thank you, all. Social Media 📱We leveraged most major social media platforms for this campaign and found LinkedIn to be particularly useful given our established networks in the biotech/life sciences industry. Facebook was also useful in that many people who we've had meaningful relationships with—despite being out of touch for years—stepped forward and invested. Instagram was disappointing given it is one of my strongest platforms for engagement, however, it is not the most active place for startup or biotech content. Twitter was even less successful only because neither Brent or I had any meaningful presence prior to the campaign and there is ZERO organic reach. This is a platform we will will strive to build over time. We've done it before, will do it again. The biggest surprise, as we outlined in a previous update, was TikTok. Our fantastic Lead Investor, Joe Rizzo, found me through one of my TikTok videos and ultimately invested $25K, all in about the course of one week! Thank you, Joe and Bindoo! Last crumb... 🔥This update is running long and so one final thing I wanted to fill you in on is progress with the Brazen Fellowship, our incubator program. Last week we virtually interviewed semifinalists for the first cohort, BRZN1 (see photo above). We had many great founders and ideas to choose from which—indeed—was a great problem to have. This week Brent and I expect to make our final decisions and offers. Stay tuned for more and if you haven't already subscribed to updates please do so now so you don't miss out.Thank you for being Brazen,—Shawn, cofounder & CEO, Brazen Bio Inc.