A quarter of my life.

It’s crazy to say it but, I’ve spent almost a quarter of my life on PledgeMe. I can’t really call it a startup anymore, because it’s stayed up this long, and it’s such a foundational part of my existence. We launched PledgeMe in February 2012, but I started working with my original co-founder in mid 2011, while I was still working out of the NZTE office in Los Angeles. The left picture above is me at a craft beer festival during my time state side.

At that time, Kickstarter was early days. I’d read articles in Wired, and gotten really excited about the democratising of funding. I’d started writing my thesis, and had found an advisor. My bosses at NZTE were super supportive, and once I was back in NZ they let me cut down my hours to part-time to do my thesis, and then start the business. When I started collaborating on PledgeMe, success to me was 15 funded campaigns. This week we ticked over the 1,300 funded campaigns mark. 

There have been some massive highs and pretty hard lows, but the constant has been our supportive crowd. From my close crowd investing in my first equity crowdfunding round, from my almost parents in law to old bosses, to the 250 people that have invested in this round, we’ve had such great support from people who truly get the impact we want to have: helping kiwis fund the things they care about. And, they get that our focus can both do well and do good, as a social enterprise.

In some ways, the last seven years have gone in the blink of an eye. In other ways, it’s been an eternity. It still feels so early in it’s journey. Yes, we’ve achieved on a bunch of fronts. But in other respects, we’re nowhere near there yet. I don’t feel like we’ve even touched the edges of the bucket on what could be funded in New Zealand, and we’ve only just started on making funding truly accessible with Tā Koha. And now we’ve added Australia to the mix. 

We’ve got 24 more hours on our latest round of funding, and I’d love for you to consider becoming a part of our journey (if you haven’t already). We want to take crowdfunding to the next level in Aotearoa (and Australia) and we truly believe we can do that with our crowd.

Thank you to all our wonderful shareholders past, present and future, and to the team who’ve gotten us here today. 

Check out our campaign here: https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/investments/318-pledgeme-limited