This platform reimagines how early-stage startups raise capital by combining the discovery mechanics of ProductHunt with the token-based fundraising model of pump.fun, while ultimately converting to traditional equity through SAFE agreements.
We're building a bridge between crypto-native fundraising and traditional startup equity structures. Founders can launch their startup to the world, raise money through programmable tokens, and automatically graduate to standard SAFE agreements when they hit their goals.
Current State:
- Traditional fundraising is slow, expensive, and requires lawyers upfront
- Cap table management involves spreadsheets and legal documents
- Early supporters can't participate until a company is ready for formal investment rounds
- There's a disconnect between crypto-native fundraising (fast, accessible) and traditional equity (legally sound, VC-compatible)
Our Solution:
- Start with tokens (fast, programmable, accessible)
- Graduate to equity (legal, professional, investor-ready)
- Automate the transition with AI-generated legal documents
For Founders:
- Create an account on the platform
- Define their fundraising parameters:
- Funding Goal: Total amount they want to raise (e.g., $100,000)
- Equity Allocation: Percentage of company they're willing to give for this raise (e.g., 10%)
- Project Description: What they're building, team info, vision
- Platform generates a unique token for their startup
- Token goes live for community fundraising
For Investors/Supporters:
- Browse startups like ProductHunt (discovery feed)
- Research projects and teams
- Purchase tokens directly with crypto
- Tokens represent future equity claim
- Watch progress toward funding goal in real-time
Token Mechanics:
- Each token represents a proportional claim to the equity allocation
- Price can be fixed or bonding curve based (like pump.fun)
- Fully transparent, onchain fundraising progress
- Programmable: tokens can have rules, vesting schedules, etc.
Trigger Event: When the funding goal is reached, the "graduation" process automatically begins.
AI-Powered Document Generation: The platform uses AI to:
- Generate proper SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) documents
- Customize based on:
- Amount raised
- Equity percentage allocated
- Valuation cap (if applicable)
- Discount rate (if applicable)
- Number of token holders
- Create cap table documentation
- Generate individual investor agreements
Conversion Process:
- Tokens are locked/burned
- SAFE agreements are issued to all token holders
- Cap table is formalized
- Startup now has traditional equity structure
- Token holders become SAFE holders with legal equity rights
For Startups:
- Clean cap table managed by platform
- Legal equity structure for future VC rounds
- Historical record of early supporters
- Platform can continue to manage equity/cap table digitally
For Investors:
- SAFE agreements represent their investment
- Legal claim to future equity
- Rights typical of SAFE holders (pro-rata, information rights, etc.)
- Can participate in future funding rounds per SAFE terms
- Not just discovery and upvotes
- Actual capital formation happens on the platform
- Financial participation, not just community engagement
- Direct founder-to-supporter transaction
- Not purely speculative tokens
- Real equity backing
- Automatic conversion to traditional startup structure
- Legal framework and compliance built-in
- Focus on real startups, not meme coins
- Faster time to capital
- Lower barrier to entry for founders
- No lawyers needed upfront
- Transparent, onchain process
- Community-driven validation
- Accessible to smaller investors/early supporters
Step 1: Account Creation
- Sign up with wallet connection
- Complete founder profile (name, background, social links)
- Verify identity (KYC if required)
Step 2: Startup Setup
- Company name and description
- What problem they're solving
- Team information
- Product stage (idea, prototype, launched)
- Upload pitch deck or demo video
Step 3: Fundraising Configuration
- Set funding goal amount (in USD or crypto)
- Define equity percentage for this round
- Optional: Set valuation cap
- Optional: Set discount rate for SAFE
- Choose token pricing model (fixed price vs bonding curve)
Step 4: Token Launch
- Platform generates smart contract for their token
- Token goes live on the discovery feed
- Founders can share link to their raise
- Monitor progress in real-time dashboard
Step 5: Community Building
- Engage with potential investors in comments
- Post updates about progress
- Answer questions
- Build excitement and trust
Step 6: Graduation
- Funding goal reached
- AI generates SAFE documents automatically
- Review and approve legal documents
- Sign electronically
- Cap table is created and managed by platform
Step 7: Post-Raise
- Access to cap table management tools
- Communicate with SAFE holders
- Prepare for future funding rounds
- Platform tracks equity distribution
Step 1: Discovery
- Browse trending startups on the feed
- Filter by category, funding stage, amount raised
- See social proof (number of backers, momentum)
- Read startup descriptions and watch pitches
Step 2: Due Diligence
- Review founder backgrounds
- Read comments and community sentiment
- Check fundraising terms (goal, equity %, valuation)
- Assess project viability
Step 3: Investment
- Connect wallet
- Choose investment amount
- Purchase tokens
- Receive tokens in wallet
- Get confirmation of investment
Step 4: Tracking
- Monitor fundraising progress
- Receive updates from founders
- See how close to graduation
- Watch token holder count grow
Step 5: Graduation Experience
- Notification when goal is reached
- Tokens automatically converted
- Receive SAFE agreement via email/platform
- Review terms and sign electronically
- Become official SAFE holder
Step 6: Portfolio Management
- View all investments in dashboard
- Track startup progress
- Access to investor updates
- Exercise rights per SAFE terms
- Participate in future rounds if applicable
- Smart contracts that represent fundraising rounds
- Each startup gets unique token contract
- Tokens track proportional ownership of the equity allocation
- Immutable record of who invested how much
- Can include vesting schedules or other conditions
- Smart contract triggers when funding goal reached
- Locks or burns tokens
- Signals backend to generate legal documents
- Creates immutable record of conversion
- Maps token holders to SAFE holders
- Takes inputs: amount raised, equity %, valuation cap, discount, investor list
- Generates: SAFE agreements, cap table, investor records
- Uses legal templates compliant with startup best practices
- Customizes for each investor's specific contribution
- Produces legally binding, e-signable documents
- Digital record of all equity holders
- Tracks SAFE agreements and terms
- Shows dilution scenarios
- Integrates with future funding rounds
- Export capability for accountants/lawyers
Platform Revenue Streams:
- Transaction Fees: Small percentage (2-5%) on every token purchase during fundraising
- Graduation Fees: Flat fee or percentage when startups hit their goal and convert to SAFEs
- Premium Features:
- Featured placement on discovery feed
- Advanced analytics for founders
- Marketing tools and email campaigns
- Custom branding options
- Cap Table Management: Monthly/annual subscription for ongoing cap table services
- Future: Secondary Market: If we enable token trading before graduation, take fees on trades
Example Economics:
- Startup raises $100K with 10% equity
- Platform takes 3% transaction fee: $3,000
- Platform charges $500 graduation fee
- Total platform revenue per raise: $3,500
- If 1000 startups raise successfully: $3.5M in revenue
- Democratizes access to startup investing
- Makes early-stage fundraising more efficient
- Bridges crypto and traditional finance worlds
- Reduces friction in capital formation
- Empowers communities to support projects they believe in
- Creates new category: "Social Fundraising"
- Get funded faster (days instead of months)
- Build community from day one
- Lower cost of initial fundraising (no lawyer fees upfront)
- Flexibility to start with tokens, graduate to equity
- Professional structure when ready for institutional investors
- Transparent process builds trust
- Access to global investor base
- Access to early-stage deals previously unavailable
- Transparent, onchain investing with real-time tracking
- Start small, participate early (micro-investments possible)
- Automatic conversion to proper legal structure
- Support projects they're passionate about
- Portfolio diversification across many startups
- Community participation, not just passive investing
- More startups get funded = more innovation
- Reduces geographic barriers (global capital meets global founders)
- Creates new asset class (startup tokens → equity)
- Financial inclusion (lower minimum investments)
- Faster capital allocation to good ideas
Primary: Early-Stage Founders
- Pre-seed stage companies
- Solo founders and small teams
- First-time founders who can't access traditional VC
- Projects that have community but not institutional backing
- Founders in underrepresented categories/geographies
Secondary: Retail Investors
- Crypto-native individuals wanting startup exposure
- Angel investors looking for deal flow
- Community members who want to support founders
- International investors unable to access US equity markets easily
- Younger investors building portfolios
Tertiary: Projects Between Crypto and Startups
- DeFi protocols that want equity structure
- NFT projects transitioning to companies
- Creator economy businesses
- Community-driven projects seeking formalization
- Global venture capital market: ~$300B annually
- Pre-seed/seed represents ~$50B of that
- Crowdfunding market: ~$1B annually
- Crypto fundraising: Variable, but billions in bull markets
- Total addressable market: $10-50B in early-stage capital formation
Republic/Wefunder (Equity Crowdfunding):
- Pros: Established, legal frameworks in place
- Cons: Slow, expensive, Reg CF limitations, US-only
- Our advantage: Faster, global, token-first approach
AngelList (Startup Investing):
- Pros: Credible, VC-backed, large network
- Cons: Accredited investors only, traditional process
- Our advantage: Open to all, community-driven, token mechanics
Pump.fun (Token Launch):
- Pros: Fast, easy, popular
- Cons: Purely speculative, no equity backing, meme culture
- Our advantage: Real startups, equity graduation, legitimacy
Carta (Cap Table Management):
- Pros: Industry standard, comprehensive
- Cons: Expensive, traditional structure only
- Our advantage: Integrated fundraising + cap table, starts with tokens
We're the only platform that combines:
- Token-based fundraising (speed + accessibility)
- Social discovery (ProductHunt style)
- Automatic equity conversion (legal soundness)
- AI-powered legal docs (reduced cost + friction)
- Full cap table management (end-to-end solution)
- Number of active fundraising campaigns
- Total capital raised through platform
- Graduation rate (% of startups that reach their goals)
- Average time to reach funding goal
- User growth (founders + investors)
- Geographic distribution
- Time from signup to first dollar raised
- Community engagement per campaign
- Post-raise success rate (do they build real businesses?)
- Repeat founders (do they come back for Series A?)
- Founder satisfaction scores
- Number of investments per user
- Portfolio diversification
- Return on investment (measured at exit events)
- Engagement with portfolio companies
- Investor retention and repeat investment rate
- Transaction volume
- Revenue per fundraise
- Customer acquisition cost
- Lifetime value of founders and investors
- Churn rate
- Platform fees as % of total raised
This platform operates at the intersection of crypto and securities law. Key considerations:
Securities Regulations:
- Tokens that convert to equity may be considered securities
- SAFE agreements are securities
- Need proper disclosures and compliance
- May need to register as funding portal or broker-dealer
- Different rules by jurisdiction
KYC/AML:
- May need to verify founder and investor identities
- Prevent money laundering
- Comply with sanctions lists
- Track large transactions
Token Classification:
- Are fundraising tokens securities? (Likely yes)
- Need legal opinion on classification
- Affects how we can market and operate
- May limit which jurisdictions we can serve
Investor Protections:
- Disclosure requirements
- Risk warnings
- Accredited vs non-accredited investor rules
- Investment limits for non-accredited investors
Our Approach:
- Work with lawyers specializing in this space
- Start in crypto-friendly jurisdictions
- Be transparent about risks
- Over-communicate compliance
- Build in flexibility to adapt to regulations
Note: This is complex and requires proper legal counsel. The platform must be built with compliance in mind from day one.
We're creating a new category that doesn't exist yet.
What it looks like in practice:
A founder wakes up with an idea. By afternoon, they've:
- Created their profile
- Described their startup
- Set their funding goal ($50K for 8% equity)
- Launched their token
Within 24 hours:
- 50 people have invested
- They've raised $5,000
- Community is discussing their idea
- Momentum is building
After 2 weeks:
- $50,000 goal reached
- 200 investors participated
- AI generates all legal documents
- Everyone receives their SAFE agreements
- Cap table is formalized
- Founder can now talk to VCs with professional structure
Traditional way:
- Months to find investors
- $5-10K in legal fees
- Limited to network and geography
- High friction at every step
This is the future we're building.
To bring this vision to life, the development should focus on:
- Smart Contract Architecture: Token generation, fundraising mechanics, graduation triggers
- Frontend Platform: Discovery feed, founder dashboards, investor portfolios
- AI Legal Engine: Document generation system with proper templates and customization
- Cap Table System: Post-graduation equity management tools
- Compliance Framework: KYC, risk disclosures, regulatory compliance
- Payment Systems: Crypto payments, fiat on-ramps, multi-currency support
The goal is to make this entire journey—from idea to funded company with professional equity structure—take days instead of months, and cost hundreds instead of thousands.
You are building: A platform that lets startup founders raise money by creating tokens, then automatically converts those tokens into proper SAFE equity agreements when they hit their funding goals.
The magic: Combining the speed and accessibility of crypto fundraising with the legal soundness of traditional startup equity, using AI to generate all the necessary legal documents.
Key user flows:
- Founder creates account → sets funding goal and equity % → token launches
- Investors discover startups → buy tokens → track progress
- Goal reached → AI generates SAFEs → tokens convert to equity → everyone happy
The innovation: This doesn't exist yet. We're bridging two worlds (crypto and startups) and creating a new way for early-stage companies to raise capital that's faster, cheaper, and more accessible than anything currently available.