Raise Capital

A safer, more reliable, way to raise money for vegan-led companies

Dear Vegan Business Founder,

Very few vegan founders know enough about financial laws and fundraising methods to successfully capitalize their companies for long term financial and ethical success. I bring over 30 years of ethical fundraising experience including 20+ years focused on ethical capital raising and liquidity methods.

Service Menu

Vegan Launch offers the following one-on-one capital service options:

1. Done for You Capital Raising. This service starts at $30,000 per month and is suitable for companies seeking to raise $3 million to $300 million.
2. Dedicated Capital Mentoring. This service starts at $5,000 per month and is suitable for companies seeking to raise $500,000 and above. I provide high-availability private strategic planning and coaching on the art of raising capital for you and your team. You and your team raise the capital.
3. Spot Mentoring and Coaching. One-off strategy and problem-solving calls with me are $300 per hour.

If you are interested in one of these options, please email me at [email protected] to learn what’s possible for your company.

Capital Raising Crash Course!

Solving the Capital Raising Challenge for Every Type of Vegan Business

Today, only about 1 in 200 vegan companies ever raises any capital pursuing conventional Angel Investors and Venture Capital Funds. Why?

Experienced Angel and Venture Capital investors only fund startups where one of the following liquidity events are likely:

1. Sale to a large publicly-traded company with deep pockets
2. A $1B+ Initial Public Offer to become a unicorn publicly-traded company

This approach might make sense in Silicon Valley, but for most vegan founders, chasing angels and VC funds, attending pitch events, and posting on investor matchmaking sites are time and money-wasting disasters.

Only about 1 in 10,000 companies trades publicly. Unless you are on track to having a $1 billion “unicorn” IPO, chasing Angels and VC’s is a nearly hopeless path for your business, and for providing ethical continuity at scale.

The few vegan companies that do raise capital this way are typically forced to sell controlling interest to animal-exploiting conglomerates in order to provide liquidity to their VC fund investors.

This doesn’t mean that I am totally opposed to Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists. Rather, if you really understand what those investors are looking for, you can plan accordingly and offer them highly-compelling terms that are win-win for everyone by using Vegan Launch’s modern capital strategies.

What about “Friends and Family” or Crowdfunding Rounds?

• Most vegan startups raising capital using either of these two approaches will never have a liquidity event, leaving their friends, family, and other investors with 100% losses.
• “Successful” crowdfunding campaigns often spend as much as 1/3 of what they raise on marketing costs, legal fees, and platform commissions. This is a terrible waste of time and money for you and your investors.
• Without strong guidance and oversight regarding business operations and finance, most vegan companies will fail to achieve their goals in the long run. This is bad for your business, for the animals, and for all the other values you intended to advance by building your company.

To escape these limiting factors, many vegan founders take on dangerous amounts of debt out of desperation. This rarely ends well, and more often leads to business failure and bankruptcies that can affect all aspects of your life.

Vegan Launch’s Solution

Vegan Launch’s fundraising approach is the result of my over forty years of ethical business experience including over 30 years of fundraising and capital leadership. To learn more about my experience in the ethical business and social change fields, please check out my Founder page. 

Here are the main components of Vegan Launch’s fundraising approach:

1. Our Convertible Equity approach is suitable for every kind of vegan business, from vegan restaurants, permaculture farms, and plant-based medical clinics to highly-scalable companies.
2. Our capitalization methods allow you to sustain your vegan ethics at every step of your entrepreneurial journey, and never have to sell out to an animal-exploiting corporation to provide liquidity for your investors.
3. In the future, our Grassroots Vegan Fund will provide permanent ethical liquidity for large vegan firms that can’t or don’t wish to go through an IPO.

A new era for vegan founders

The chart below shows that ethical investors and vegan-friendly capital is virtually unlimited. Most vegan founders have no idea how to reach these investors effectively raise capital from them.

Vegan Launch breaks down the capital raising process into simple steps so that you can access this virtually untapped investor market to raise permanent capital for your vegan-led company.

Checklist of Essential Items for Raising Capital

Below are the minimum elements all vegan founders should have in place before attempting to raise capital. Depending on your current level of preparation and availability to focus on these items, you can be raising capital in as little as two weeks in our high-speed, low-risk capitalization programs noted above.

1. A term sheet describing the investment product you wish to sell to investors
2. An understanding of the addressable market for your company’s products and services
3. An investment thesis explaining why investors might wish to buy your investment product, and the ability to make your case to investors
4. An understanding of the suitable investor market for your company’s investment product
5. A viable liquidity plan for investors that can allow them to convert their holdings in your company into cash at some point in the future
6. Enough leadership presence that you don’t freak out in investor meetings
7. A business bank account compliant with your country’s laws
8. Up-to-date bookkeeping and a qualified accountant reviewing your financial records and reports with you every month
9. A strong understanding of your firm’s financial reports and the ability to speak powerfully to investors about how your reports relate to your company’s goals, strategies, and prospects
10. With a few exceptions, you’ll need a securities attorney experienced in the specific legal regulations you’ll be complying with for your raise.

Get Started

To explore working with Vegan Launch to raise capital for your company, please email me at [email protected]. 

Mark Winstein
Founder, Vegan Launch