Your weekly read in one sitting.

• Venture Squad Updates
• That's A Big Deal: Pilot
• Adventure Capital: MicroAcquire & Vampr
• Case Study: Immersed

Since Wefunder is the home of the Community Round, we constantly overhear many updates from founders, past and present, Venture Partners, Scouts, and all of the rest of the people supporting our mission of Fixing Capitalism that could benefit you all. So, it's only right that we begin to inform you on the News, Experiences, and general Shout Outs that you yourself can champion, as well. May this collection aid you in your journey and make the process a little bit easier.

Now, off we go, starting with Venture Squad Updates!

Not only are they creating much needed opportunities for Founders, but some are also landing new ones for themselves. It's good to stay in the know to see how we can encourage as well as benefit.

• Render Capital has a Matching Fund for Founders in Louisville and Southern Indiana. It will match the fist $20k raised from the crowd! If you know a founder from that neck of the woods, please let them know. Learn more.
• Jude Dike of GetEquity partnered with us to allow investors on the African continent to invest in African founders listed on Wefunder. That global reach is getting bigger. Learn more.
• Danny Tamez of GUM got into ODX and has also started a partnership with Wefunder that creates an opportunity for Founders to get selected for a GUM cohort where they may lead an investment for you. Also, the GUM app in general is a good tool for Founders that need more awareness on their story. Learn more.
• Brian Bristol's company Pigeon Loans (also a Wefunder alum) is now YC backed! Another example of the heights our support can help our Community of Founders reach. Learn more.
• Happy Belated Birthday to Ato Bentsi-Enchill (Feb 13th) who also has become a new Venture Partner at RallyCap Ventures. 
• Garry Johnson III and crew launched Startup302! Delaware's premier funding competition for tech-enabled startups led by underrepresented founders.
• Michael D’Arrigo took on a new role as an analyst at Norwest Venture Partners. Check out their portfolio.
• Susie Pan joined SHEEO as Director of Ventures. We love that company name so much and, more importantly, all of the resources they're building for women and non-binary folks.

We have a Big Deal here for Founders from our friends over at Pilot. For those of you who don't know, Pilot offers stellar Bookkeeping, Tax, and CFO services for growing businesses, and now Wefunder companies get 20% off of Pilot Core or Select for six months! 

Here's a quote from a happy customer.

"Pilot automatically connects to our financial accounts, sends us monthly reports, and syncs everything in Quickbooks. They helped us save by flagging double payments. We pretty much spend zero time on accounting and can focus on our product and company." Anurag Goel, Founder, Render

The idea of Bookkeeping and Taxes can be an overwhelming part of the business for some and thanks to a Partnership like this we are at least one step closer to breathing a sigh of relief. That alone should be a reason to start a Community Round.

You can also sign up to get a live 20 Minute Demo to see it in action before you dive in, and when you're ready be sure to visit the Partner Page.

This past week on Adventure Capital the lovely Jonny and Kapow sat down with two of our favorite Founders, Andrew Gazdecki of MicroAcquire and Josh Simons of Vampr. 

Two Founders that put Community first 100%. Give it a listen and be sure to fall down the rabbit hole that is our playlist. This might be one of our better tools to date, next to the Fundraising Playbook.

Let's look back on a Community Round Case Study that is a good example of understanding the value of one's network. We see these as good things to think about if and when you decide to raise with us.

Immersed is a VR productivity software and XX alum, that raised over $1M in a single day on Wefunder. A few days later, the team passed $2M. It was quite incredible to watch, so when the smoke cleared we just had to ask Renji about some of his Outreach/Marketing tactics. Here are a couple on Pre-Launch and Pushing Past the Plateau.

Pre-Launch

• Recruit your core network. Four days prior to launch, Renji recruited 40 people in his personal network that he knew would eagerly invest and evangelize. He shared the unlisted YouTube link with them and asked that they invest immediately via Wefunder. He also gave them a heads up that he’d be reaching out on the day of the launch to enlist their help in boosting his social media posts.

Pushing Past the Plateau

• Ping all of your mailing lists. Renji, again, emailed his mailing list of high net worth investors, future hires, VCs, and other founders that he’d shared the Discord poll results with. He also pinged another mailing list of current and past users. Renji credits this mid-round email for bringing rich and professional investors’ sense of FOMO to a boiling point – many investors who had already invested doubled back to invest more.

Read the Immersed Case Study, as well as others, in full here.

That'll do for now. We look forward to continuing this conversation, and building more segments over time that will hopefully feed your Investor and/or Founder soul. In the meantime, let us know what you found enlightening, what you would hope to see in the coming months, and sign up to start raising for your own Community Round!

Classic - Your Overly Enthusiastic Storyteller