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Wefunder helps everyday people invest in startup companies they care about by providing an online marketplace where startups list fundraising rounds and investors can commit as little as $100 under the JOBS Act. The platform manages the investment process and post-investment communications, enabling a broad base of supporters to own a piece of early-stage companies. It differentiates itself by democratizing startup investing, turning customers and fans into investors rather than focusing only on accredited investors. Its goal is to broaden access to startup investing and build a community of passionate investors to support early-stage innovation.
Industries
Venture Capital
Fintech
Financial Services
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Early VC
Total Funding
$9.3M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2011
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Total Funding
$9.3M
Below
Industry Average
Funded Over
5 Rounds
🚀 Generous stock options
🏝 Unlimited vacation days
🚞 All-expense-paid Wefunder vacation once a year
😷 Medical, dental, & vision insurance.
💵 401(k) with company match
💻 Apple equipment
🧇 Daily lunch and weekly team dinners.
📚 Classes & conferences
FishTank vs Wefunder: which is better for founders?,. Whats the difference and which is better for founders? No time to read? Let AI give you a quick summary of this article. Most comparisons between FishTank and Wefunder focus on fundraising, investor networks, or platform size. But those comparisons miss the most important distinction. FishTank and Wefunder are built around completely different ways of discovering startups. Wefunder asks investors to read. FishTank asks investors to watch. That single difference changes how founders tell their stories, how investors evaluate opportunities, and ultimately how capital gets allocated. The traditional crowdfunding model: Wefunder. A founder creates a campaign page containing: * A written company description * Financial information * Market analysis * Team information * Investor updates * A pitch deck * Supporting documents - including a mandatory Form C filing with the SEC Investors browse campaigns and spend time reading through the materials before deciding whether to invest. For experienced investors, this approach feels familiar. It resembles the process used in traditional startup fundraising, where founders distribute pitch decks and investors review documentation before making decisions. The system works. But it also assumes that investors are willing to spend significant time reading every opportunity they encounter. FishTank's approach: A video-first startup marketplace. FishTank takes a dramatically different approach. Instead of asking investors to browse pages of text, FishTank presents startups through a short-form video feed that feels familiar to anyone who has used TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. Founders pitch directly to investors through video. Investors scroll through startup opportunities the same way they consume modern content. Rather than reading ten pages about a company, an investor can quickly understand: * What the company does * Who the founders are * What problem they're solving * Why the opportunity matters within seconds. The result is a fundraising experience that feels far more aligned with how people discover information today. FishTank App Inc. has written more about this model in TikTok-Style Investing: What FishTank Gets Right. Why this matters. The biggest challenge in startup fundraising isn't always convincing investors. Often, it's getting investors to pay attention in the first place. Every founder knows the feeling of spending weeks perfecting a pitch deck only to wonder whether anyone actually read it. Video changes that dynamic. A founder's passion, communication skills, and personality become part of the pitch itself. Investors don't just evaluate a business. They evaluate the people building it. That's difficult to capture in a PDF. This is one reason why building in public has become such a powerful signal for early-stage founders - it lets investors watch progress in real time, not just read a finished document. Pitch decks were built for a different era. Pitch decks emerged during a time when startup fundraising happened almost entirely through private meetings and email introductions. * Founder sends deck. * Investor reads deck. * Investor schedules a meeting. * Founder pitches in person. But platforms like FishTank collapse those steps together. The pitch is the introduction. The founder is immediately visible. The story is delivered directly rather than filtered through slides and bullet points. For many investors, that creates a faster and more engaging way to evaluate opportunities. According to research from the Harvard Business Review, venture capital firms rely heavily on referrals and trusted networks when sourcing deals - a structural bottleneck that video-first discovery platforms are designed to disrupt. FishTank App Inc. explore this dynamic further in The Gap in Startup Fundraising No One Talks About. The TikTok effect on startup investing. Over the past decade, nearly every major consumer platform has moved toward video-first discovery. Consumers increasingly prefer watching over reading. FishTank applies that same concept to startup investing. FishTank App Inc. has explored this at length in TikTok for Startup Capital Raising and TikTok for Venture Capital. Instead of treating startup discovery like document review, it treats startup discovery like content discovery. This doesn't replace due diligence. Investors still need access to financials, company information, and offering details before investing - including legally required disclosures like Form C, which must be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for any Reg CF raise. But it changes how investors find opportunities in the first place. FishTank vs Wefunder: Side-by-Side Comparison. | / | FishTank | Wefunder | | Discovery method | Short-form video feed | Browse written campaign pages | | Pitch format | Founder-on-camera video | Pitch deck + written materials | | Investor experience | Scroll & watch (like TikTok) | Read & research | | Time to evaluate a startup | Seconds | Minutes to hours | | Personality visibility | High - founder is the pitch | Low - filtered through documents | | Required SEC filing | Form C (Reg CF) | Form C (Reg CF) | | Ideal for founders who... Tell stories well on camera | Write strong investor materials | | Ideal for investors who... Want fast, broad deal discovery | Want to deep-dive before committing | | Building in public | Native to the platform | Not a focus | | Stage focus | Early-stage, pre-seed & seed | All stages | Which platform is better for founders? The answer depends on your strengths. Wefunder may be a better fit if: * You prefer traditional fundraising materials. * Your company relies heavily on detailed documentation. * You already have strong written investor materials. * You are comfortable competing in a text-heavy environment. FishTank may be a better fit if: * You can tell a compelling story on camera. * Your product is easy to demonstrate visually. * You want investors to connect with your personality and vision. * You believe attention is the scarcest resource in fundraising. For many founders, being able to show rather than tell can be a significant advantage. If you're still figuring out how to raise startup funding, video-first platforms lower the barrier to initial investor attention considerably. Want to understand what the ideal entrepreneur's investment process looks like end-to-end? FishTank App Inc. break it down in depth. The future of equity crowdfunding. The real question isn't whether video will replace written investor materials. Investors will always need access to detailed information before making investment decisions. The question is whether startup discovery should begin with a pitch deck or with a story. Wefunder represents the traditional model: read first, invest later. FishTank represents a newer model: watch first, investigate later. As younger investors enter the market and content consumption continues shifting toward video, that difference may become increasingly important. The role of trends in funding startups is accelerating this shift, and early crowdfunding is changing everything about how capital finds its way to founders. For a deeper look at how these platforms attract investor attention, see How to Attract Investors on Digital Pitch Platforms. Final thoughts. Both FishTank and Wefunder allow founders to raise capital through equity crowdfunding. But they reflect two very different philosophies. Wefunder is built around documents, pitch decks, and written campaigns. FishTank is built around video, storytelling, and discovery. For founders who believe the best way to sell a vision is face-to-face - even through a screen - FishTank offers something that traditional crowdfunding platforms often struggle to provide: the ability to let investors experience the founder, not just the pitch deck. Ready to try it? Join the FishTank pre-beta and start building visibility with investors today.
LPPFusion Inc. has raised just over $1 million after concluding its crowdfunding campaign and Reg. D share offering on 28 January. The company secured approximately $530,000 through Wefunder, exceeding its goal by $30,000, and $490,000 through its Reg. D offering. The fusion research startup estimates it now has about $200,000 more in cash than when the campaigns began on 1 March 2025. The fundraising involved 566 investors through Wefunder, plus additional Reg. D investors. LPPFusion thanked all investors for supporting its fusion energy research. The company's audited financial report is not yet complete, and it plans to announce future funding rounds.
Trace, a London-based startup from Y Combinator's 2025 summer cohort, has raised $3 million in seed funding to solve AI agent adoption challenges in enterprise. Investors include Y Combinator, Zeno Ventures, Transpose Platform Management, Goodwater Capital, Formosa Capital and WeFunder. The workflow orchestration platform builds knowledge graphs from companies' existing tools like email, Slack and Airtable. Users can then prompt the system with high-level tasks, and Trace creates step-by-step workflows, delegating some tasks to AI agents and others to human workers whilst providing necessary context. The company aims to automate AI agent onboarding, which CEO Tim Cherkasov identifies as a major deployment blocker. Trace faces competition from Anthropic's enterprise agents and workplace productivity services launching their own AI tools.
Startup Science has launched a Regulation Crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder, allowing founders and supporters to become stakeholders in its platform. The company has previously raised $5.75 million from management and strategic investors. The San Diego-based platform currently supports over 88,000 founders and 200 entrepreneur support organisations across four continents. It connects founders with education, mentors, accelerators and investors through AI-matched support networks, partnering with organisations including the Angel Capital Association and National Black Chamber of Commerce. "By investing in this round, founders are not just users of the platform; they're co-owners in an ecosystem built to help them succeed," said founder and CEO Gregory Shepard. The campaign runs for a limited time exclusively on WeFunder.
RISE Robotics has been named the number one Regulation Crowdfunding campaign of 2025 by Kingscrowd, raising over $5.3 million from more than 2,200 investors. The company develops Beltdraulic, a fluid-free electric actuation system for heavy machinery. RISE ranked first among over 1,000 Reg CF campaigns nationwide, making it the largest such raise in the US in 2025. Only nine companies reached the $5 million cap under Regulation Crowdfunding last year. The Somerville-based startup achieved several milestones in 2025, including earning a Guinness World Record for the world's strongest robotic arm prototype, securing contracts with the US Army and Air Force worth $3 million, and delivering its first commercial cylinder. The company is raising on Wefunder platform.
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Industries
Venture Capital
Fintech
Financial Services
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Early VC
Total Funding
$9.3M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2011
Find jobs on Simplify and start your career today