Vive la DEI!

One of the things I love about working at Wefunder is the diversity of founders and startups I get to work with.

Some examples of companies we’ve helped raise capital recently include:

Substack, a Y Combinator-backed and Andreessen Horowitz-backed tech startup in San Francisco, who raised $7.8M from 6,688 readers and writers on the platform.

Rikki’s Bar, a women’s sports bar in San Francisco, who raised a revenue share-based loan from hundreds of local residents and customers.

Siren Biotechnology, a Founders Fund-backed biotech startup fighting the world’s deadliest cancers. Check out this blog post I wrote about their raise.

Bad Idea, a wine bar and exquisite Laotian restaurant here in Nashville, recently nominated for a James Beard award.

The Oakland Roots and Soul, men’s and women’s soccer teams in Oakland, who raised $3.6M from 6,338 fans, across two community rounds.

CurlMix, a CPG Beauty company, based in Chicago, who raised $5.7M from 9,248 customers and community members.

At Wefunder, we’re excited to host some of the hottest venture-backed startups in the world on the platform — Mercury, Replit, etc…

…And we’re also proud to be an open platform, which can help a coffee shop founder raise the $100K they need to open their doors, or an early stage founder raise their first friends and family round.

And we’re not just talking about diversity of industry sectors, and stages of companies.

DEI might have gone out of vogue over the last couple of years, but that doesn’t change the fact that 1% of venture capital dollars currently goes to black founders, and 2% goes to female-only founding teams, vs. the 80% that goes to male-only founding teams.

And if you’re Republican, then I’ll highlight diversity of geography. Because right now, 77% of VC dollars go to three states (California, New York and Massachusetts), and they’re all Blue.

By contrast, these are the 146 startups fundraising on Wefunder right now:

wefunder.com/explore/map

I like Diversity, I like Equity (in both senses of the word!), and I like Inclusion.

And I don’t really give a damn if it’s not as fashionable to say that any more.