Yesterday, we raised $29,000. Thanks goes out to all of those that participated.
I am going to share a short story, so please be patient.
In 2003, I founded a company called TopTenReviews (later changed to Purch). Purch always struggled in the early years. There was never enough capital, so boot-strapping the company was the only option. This meant working in a 75-year-old warehouse with plastic chairs and church tables for furniture. As with most startups, Purch pivoted multiple times with zigs and zags trying to identify the right strategy. The early years were challenging trying to make the next payroll, pay vendors, and deliver to customers – finding additional cash runway was excruciating and humbling. After 5 years and approaching 100+ venture capital firms, Purch was finally able to secure its first investors, Bo Peabody and Mark Solon. Bo and Mark became our heroes. With their investment, guidance, and contacts, they became the catalyst for the future success of Purch. At the time, Purch was $3 Million in revenues, and was close to break-even with an occasional profitable month. With $6 Million in new capital, Purch began expanding through organic growth and acquisitions. Over the next few years additional capital was raised from new institutional investors. Using the new capital with a fine-tuned strategy, Purch was able to build out a business model that allowed it to grow into one of the Internet’s largest digital media companies (now over 125 Million unique monthly Internet visitors). Last October, Purch sold off part of the company for $132 Million and changed the remaining business to “Business.com” and continues to grow. Both Bo and Mark were able to exit Purch and did extremely well with their return-on-investment.
In a lot of respects, WhiteClouds had very similar circumstances and historical milestones as did Purch. WhiteClouds has zigged and zagged over the last few years testing and optimizing our On-Demand 3D Fabrication strategy within a very new industry. Each of you below (our investor family) have made a huge impact on allowing us to grow WhiteClouds – you will never know the significance of your investment. You are the WhiteClouds heroes!!!! With your investments, we removed our low-margin business sectors and have grown our customer base. In addition to our mid-size customers, we now have 80 of the Fortune 1000 companies as our customers which validates our solution can work with almost any type of business.
WE NEED THE HELP OF OUR HEROES! I am asking you to step up and become our heroes again. If you can participate again in this new round – GREAT! If you can’t participate, I am sure every one of you knows someone that would be interested in participating – please refer them to https://wefunder.com/whiteclouds. With over 1,000 investors already invested into WhiteClouds, it is very possible we could raise into the millions. We are trying to raise a larger round, even if it requires spinning up a Reg D offering in addition to our Reg CF crowdfunding offering. Please help us out and support our Round 3. We have built something special – we just need the capital to position the next phase of our business. The proceeds are going to be used to expand sales and marketing and our content creation. We are working towards sharing a similar success story as with Purch.
Thank-You for your belief and support, Jerry Ropelato, CEO
Thank-You to Our Heroes – Our Investor Family