For startups looking to raise capital, more and more founders are turning to online fundraising. These platforms are relatively new, launching as a direct result of the 2012 JOBS Act, which paved the way for startups to publicly advertise their capital raises and leverage equity crowdfunding to turn everyday customers into investors — whether or not those customers were “accredited investors”.

Platforms work as a marketplace for investors to discover potential investments, startups ranging from robotics to SaaS, CPG, and more. From the startup founder’s perspective, the ideal is to have as many quality, engaged investors as possible considering their deal and a clear strategy for raising their full round once launched.

That is precisely why so many investors and startup founders are choosing SeedInvest. Compared with other platforms, SeedInvest is very selective about what startups are approved to fundraise on the platform. As a result, founders raised an average of $3.3 million in 2020, which historically has been higher than other platforms (Source: VentureBeat). A more successful raise is good for founders and investors.

“We are the most highly-vetted platform. We are very particular who we work with,” said SeedInvest CEO Ryan Feit. “We don’t fund ideas and we don’t fund projects. We have raised from a half-million dollars to over $20 million, supporting everything from Seed through Series C.”

One key differentiator for SeedInvest has been building extensive trust with active and influential investors, no matter their check size. Investors love to see spreadsheets, patents and impressive names on the executive team, but they also need to trust their gut instinct and operational experience to make decisions on which startups get money and how much. That’s where SeedInvest delivers — they have built deep trust with many investors.

It all means that SeedInvest companies can raise more money, during and after their online fundraise. Startup investing is risky and not every outcome is a win, but consider some of SeedInvest’s recent portfolio activity:

Heliogen – the first retail investor unicorn in the U.S., going public at a $2 billion valuation
Shelf.io – $50M+ Series B raised from Tiger Global and Insight Partners
Winc – Bessemer-backed company going public
CleanCapital – $300M commitment from John Hancock parent company
Apptopia – recently closed $20M round
Waycare – acquired by publicly traded company
SeedInvest, through its wholly owned FINRA/SEC registered broker-dealer, can help founders and investors navigate these relatively new waters so well because they literally helped write the new rules.

One of the startup founders that SeedInvest has helped is Jan Goetgeluk, the founder and CEO for Virtuix, a VR gaming business that also boasts Mark Cuban as an investor.

SeedInvest is strict about which companies make it on the platform and this helps generate the trust that in turn delivers successful fundraises and positive outcomes for both startups and investors.

One such confident investor is Sunmeet Jolly, who has been using the platform since 2016 and has already invested in 40 startups, mostly in virtual reality, B2B SaaS, robotics and fintech.

“How is Seedinvest different? SeedInvest doesn’t go for volume. They always always go for higher quality deals,” Jolly said. Speaking of startup candidates he has seen on other platforms, “99 percent of them, SeedInvest would not accept them.”

SeedInvest recommends that investors diversify—according to Jolly—encouraging them to set their own startup investment allocation, then spread the amount of money that investor is willing to spend amongst ten or so companies. For Jolly, that has translated into company investments as small as $1,000 (although the platform has minimums as low as $500 for some companies) and as much as $20,000. That gives smaller investors a lot of flexibility.