🦄 Issue 5. Community-driven unicorns, 27 investments, recruiting investment partners, fundraising war rooms, and more
A monthly newsletter for community-driven founders, funders, and friends.
Welcome to The Community Fund’s Newsletter. The Community Fund is an early-stage fund that invests in community-driven companies. Community-driven companies have customers who identify as members, create value for each other, and drive a marketing-sales flywheel. Learn more about TCF here.
Happy August 1st! Have you been hearing more and more about awesome community-driven companies? We certainly have. Thanks to valuations held by AirBnB ($90B), MongoDB ($23B), Peloton ($35B), and others, the community-driven moat has been proven and is trending. What can we say? Future unicorns will be community-driven and we’re excited to back them!
🎉 Speaking of community-driven companies, congrats to TCF investment partners Songe LaRon and Dave Salvant for raising $60M for Squire and achieving a $750M valuation!
As for what’s new at The Community Fund, since we launched in October 2020, here’s…
HOW WE’VE DONE
seen thousands of startups reach out to us at thecommunity.vc and our investment partners directly
invested in 27 community-driven startups
seen 9 valuation increases
WHAT WE’RE PLANNING
growing, recruiting new investment partners (to maximize our sector/skill-set and geographical coverage) and launching year 2 with them in Q4 2021. Stay tuned for the application we’ll share here and @thecommunityvc.
offering fundraising war rooms for our portfolio companies, where we’ll roll up our sleeves and help our founders plan and execute on their raise - leveraging our collective communities and brains.
✨ The Community Fund
linktr.ee | Twitter
ICYMI: TCF was featured in TechCrunch, Fast Company. We crossed 4.5K followers @thecommunityvc; and set up a job board for all community-driven companies.Portfolio companies
Fundraises
Kindra @PRNewsWire @Bazaar | Kindra Raises $4.5M Seed Round To Grow Women's Wellness Brand Focused On Menopause
Famosos @Forbes @Revista PENG | Famosos Raises $4.5M Seed to Expand Celebrity Engagement Platform in LATAM and expands to Brazil
News
Snowball Wealth @Cheddar @CNBC | Snowball Wealth Focuses on Helping Women Overcome Student Debt
Baraka @Wamda | Baraka is one of the 7 MENA startups selected for Y Combinator
Bradefy @Richmond Inno | How Brandefy customers helped inspire the creation of newly launched skincare line
Zeta @TechCrunch | How Zeta aims to make money management a multi-player game to help couples achieve financial success
Dame @Forbes | Dame made the Women-Led Startups Driving The Future Of FemTech list
Golde @Marie Claire | Get to know Trinity Mouzon Wofford of Golde in this Beauty Inside & Out feature
EngineEars @Trapital | MixedByAli talks about launching EngineEars, TDE’s Legacy, and Mixing for Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre
The Grand @Forbes | The Grand’s recent fundraise has the attention of Japan
Ayana @New York Times | It’s Hard to Search for a Therapist of Color. Ayana is changing that.
Ceremonia @Hypebae | Haircare Brand Ceremonia Expands Offerings with Terrycloth Apparel
Healthy Roots @GoDaddy | Icons of Detroit: Celebrating the Beauty of Diversity with Healthy Roots Dolls
Offers
The Grand | Manager training & community: The Grand, a community that actively supports each other in navigating professional and personal life milestones, invites you to their Becoming an Effective Manager program.
Copper | Authors & reader community: Copper, a platform connecting authors and readers, welcomes the TCF community to sign-up as a beta tester for an inside look.
Marco | Experience Seekers: Marco, an experiences platform that brings people together through extraordinary experiences, is offering the TCF community a 20% discount.
West Tenth | Home-based business owners: West Tenth welcomes the TCF community to sign-up for Quick Shop, a feature that allows you to request specific service packages & products offered by women home-based businesses owners.
Snowball Wealth | Students tackling debt: Snowball Wealth, a platform helping students tackling debt so they can start saving and investing, invites you to their save $1K in 30-days challenge.
💰 Want TCF to consider your startup for investment? Submit your co to thecommunity.vc.
Portfolio Co Feature: Brandefy has released Skincall, a skincare brand created by and for the Brandefy community.Investment partners
Fundraises
Dave Salvant & Songe LaRon @Fortune | As barbershops boom, Squire Technologies draws a $750 million valuation
News
Lolita Taub @TechCrunch | Traditional VCs turn to emerging managers for deal flow and, in some cases, new partners
Dave Salvant & Songe Laron @Essense | 7 Black-Owned Apps You Need To Download Now
Aaron Samuels @The New York Times | 5 Pieces of Good News About the News
Offers
Melissa Moore @AllRaise | Women and non-binary founders: get your FREE fundraising masterclass on All Raise, a platform working to accelerate the success of female founders and funders.
👀 Want to get to know the team? Follow us on Twitter @thecommunityvc.
Portfolio Co Feature: Enhance your intimacy with Workshops by Dame Products. Choose from their existing library of pleasure-unlocking classes or keep an eye out for upcoming live classes. Learn skills and new perspectives to support and re-kindle your sex life! LPs news
Jeff Bussgang @Harvard Business School | For Entrepreneurs, the Benefits of Slowing Down
Jobs
Elektra Health | Head of Product > New York City, NY
Zeta | React Native Engineer > Remote
Sugar | Senior Softwarre Engineer > Remote
The Grand | Business Development Manager > Remote
Zette | Product Designer > Remote
💥 See all open roles here. 💥
💼 Want to post OR find a job? Visit the Community Fund Jobs, a board for the best jobs at community-driven companies, here. Events
8/27-28 | AfroTech: The largest Black tech conference. TCF investment partner Aaron Samuels will be leading the conference.
9/21-23 | Techcrunch Disrupt: A conference focused on founders and investors shaping the future of disruptive technology and ideas and startup experts providing insights to entrepreneurs. TCF Co-founder & GP Lolita Taub will be speaking.
Portfolio Company: Ceremonia launched their Guava Rescue and Repair Kit to keep your hair protected in the sun. Check them out.Resources
Lolita Taub | Take advantage of this 400+ Community-Driven Founder Resources Guide
Peter Yang | Read how to scale a product community to 100K members
Jenny Weigle | Learn how to conduct a mid-year review with your community
Rich Millington | Get tips on how to use data to prioritize community activities
TCF x Community Club | Join our community-driven investor Slack community
📚 Want to read more The Community Fund content? Follow us on our Medium blog here. ✨ Like the newsletter and think others would benefit from it? Share it with community-driven founders, funders, and friends.
👋 If you’d like to learn more about The Community Fund, visit our linktr.ee and reach out to Lolita Taub.