For business leads, meaning deal flow, we have engaged Digital Niche Agency (DNA) in L.A. since September 2019. We continue reaching out to founders on LinkedIn and Facebook with remarketing campaigns. DNA manages our social media channels and our lead funnels, utilizing our HubSpot sales and marketing tools to contact entrepreneurs and investors.

Before the pandemic, we went to pitch events and networked with angel groups, V.C., and the entire startup ecosystem. We’re active online; we hired Melrose PR to place articles in various media and interviewed about our platform in multiple webinars and fireside chats attended by investors, startups, and the rest of the venture community.

We have excellent relationships with incubators, accelerators, and referrers who refer deals that we pay them for if they launch on our platform.

We created comparison charts, and yes, our fees are competitive, and we are keeping these charts up to date. We’ve spoken to 1000+ founders about being on our funding platform, and we are not getting pushback on our fees. We believe our fees are in the sweet spot among our competitors, and our structure is simple to understand.

Low fees are not the driving factor to sign entrepreneurs to raise on our site. It’s about relationships, advising them on valuation, introducing them to best-of-breed partners, and walking entrepreneurs through the process.

None of our competitors are exclusively Regulation Crowdfunding. Here are the five most active equity crowdfunding sites:

1. StartEngine. StartEngine was involved with the SEC and Congress early on to help pass the 2012 JOBS Act. StartEngine was also home to the first successful Reg A+ funding of Elio Motors, which in February 2016 raised $17M from more than 6,000 unaccredited investors. StartEngine does not appear to perform more than the minimum due diligence required (like criminal background checks on key stakeholders), and in fact, they advertise a relatively fast turnaround time (48 hours) for companies looking to begin a fundraising campaign on their site. There’s a wide selection of choices but note that it’s a very different approach than the “1% of startups who apply” model from another site like SeedInvest. StartEngine has a $190M valuation.

2. MicroVentures. MicroVentures was among the very first online venture-investing platforms. Founded in 2009, they started by offering traditional angel and venture investments to accredited investors, but in smaller dollar amounts and exclusively online. They have a strong track record and history, including having offered investments in Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp before each went public. They’ve done more than $100M in transactions, and they emphasize the quality of their due diligence for companies offered on their platform (and they even speak by phone with every investor who signs up).

3. Wefunder. Like MicroVentures, Wefunder was also an early player in online angel investing, and they have been aggressive in branching out into other forms of crowdfunding investments as new regulations have come into effect. They have helped fund more than 150 startups (totaling almost $40M in funding raised from nearly 100,000 investors), including some well-known brands like Zenefits. Wefunder has also started offering Investment Clubs as another curation vehicle for investments (which they refer to as “Wefunder-in-a-box”), allowing users to create their own funding portal. Wefunder is a graduate of the vaunted Y-Combinator startup incubator, and the founders personally helped lobby the SEC and Congress to pass the 2012 JOBS Act and were even invited to the 2012 signing ceremony.

4. SeedInvest. SeedInvest was founded in 2011 and launched in 2013. Like Wefunder, Seedinvest’s founders participated in discussions with the SEC and Congress to help pass the 2012 JOBS Act. SeedInvest is one of the few platforms to offer the full crowdfunding trifecta of Reg D, Reg A+, and Reg C.F. investments. SeedInvest advertises that they accept just 1% of the startups that apply, yet still offers a nice selection of products and companies from multiple industries. SeedInvest was recently acquired by Circle, backed by Goldman Sachs and others.

5. Republic. Republic launched in July 2016. The founders include alums from both Uber and AngelList, bringing strong startup credibility to the table. They are distinguishing themselves among Title III Funding portals with a standout social user interface, including neat features like investment groups and ultra-low minimums (as low as $10 for some investments), which is quite small among crowdfunding portals.

Title3Funds is the only company to have a “Transfer from IRA” button during the checkout process linked to self-directed IRA custodians who encourage their clients to diversify into the new asset class of crowdfunding securities.

Our “use of funds” includes building a proprietary API for distribution to retirement account custodians who will do the work of building hooks from their accounts to our investments.

We are the only funding portal that focuses exclusively on Regulation Crowdfunding, Title III of the JOBS Act (our namesake).

Other funding portals pivoted to Reg A and Reg D because the $1.07M funding limit was too low to scale. We held back our launch for the $5M funding increase. Reg CF is less expensive for founders and requires much less reporting than Reg A and Reg D offerings. We are the only company vetting companies raising $5M for Seed and Series A for Reg CF, which with the SEC rules change, is now more attractive than Reg A and Reg D.

Our team comprises crowdfunding pioneers with deep relationships in the industry and experience in finance, financial compliance, and eCommerce.