How Pacaso Raised $72.5M from Retail Investors
DealMaker
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After raising over $200M from top-tier VCs like Greycroft, Fifth Wall, and Maveron, Pacaso made a bold decision: open their cap table to retail investors.
The result? $72.5M in capital AND 17,500+ investor-advocates who now promote their brand, provide market intelligence, and convert at 3x the rate of regular customers.
This isn't just fundraising, it's a competitive advantage. While raising, Pacaso simultaneously built brand awareness, converted customers into superfans, and created a community that strengthens every business metric from CAC to LTV.
In this exclusive conversation, Pacaso CEO Austin Allison and CLO David Willbrand join DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba to reveal why the smartest growth-stage companies are positioning retail capital as a strategic business tool, not just a funding source.
In this webinar, you'll discover:
The Business Case Beyond Capital: Why retail investors deliver compounding value through customer conversion, brand amplification, market feedback, and loyalty that traditional capital can't match—turning your cap table into a growth engine
Strategic Capital Advantage: The concrete business metrics behind 17,500+ retail investors—from higher customer lifetime value to lower acquisition costs to organic brand advocacy—and why this matters more than the money itself
Brand Building While You Raise: How Pacaso used their capital campaign to simultaneously increase brand awareness, educate their market, and position themselves as category leaders (proving fundraising and marketing aren't separate activities)
The Customer-Investor Flywheel: Why customers who invest become 3-5x more valuable than regular customers, spend more, refer more, and provide strategic insights that inform product development
Execution Blueprint: The real timeline, marketing approach, and platform infrastructure behind a $72.5M raise, from deciding on Reg A+ to managing a year-long campaign while maximizing business value
VC Relationships Strengthened: Why institutional investors supported (not opposed) the retail raise, and how retail capital actually de-risked the business and validated their market thesis
Mission Alignment: How Pacaso applied their democratization philosophy to their own equity and built a community of investor-advocates who evangelize the brand
As Austin puts it: "The smartest companies are building communities of investor-advocates, not just raising capital. Every dollar raised is also a customer relationship strengthened, a brand ambassador created, and market intelligence gathered."
Whether you're a VC-backed founder exploring your options or planning your first retail raise, this conversation will show you how to transform capital raising from a financing event into a strategic business advantage that compounds value long after the round closes.
Speakers
Rebecca Kacaba
CEO & Co-Founder @ DealMaker
Rebecca Kacaba is the CEO and Co-Founder of DealMaker, the platform that has powered over $2.3 billion in online capital raises and is transforming how companies engage with retail investors. A former capital markets lawyer who testified before Congress on democratizing investment access, Rebecca has been the architect behind the industry's largest and most successful Reg A+ offerings. Named to the Deloitte Fast 500 and recognized as a pioneer in digital capital formation, she's building the infrastructure that enables companies like Pacaso to tap into the power of community capital. Her mission is clear: ensure the future of capital markets is written by millions of retail investors, not just a handful of institutions.
Austin Allison
CEO & Co-Founder @ Pacaso
Austin co-founded Pacaso to make the dream of second home ownership a reality for more people after experiencing the profound effect it had on his own life. Pacaso is Austin’s second startup. In 2008, he founded dotloop in his hometown of Cincinnati, a company that created software to seamlessly manage real estate transactions. Zillow acquired dotloop in 2015, and Austin continued to run dotloop as a Zillow executive until 2018. Austin started selling real estate at the age of 18 and worked in residential and commercial real estate for a decade.
David Willbrand
CLO @ Pacaso
David Willbrand serves as Chief Legal Officer at Pacaso, where he oversees Legal, People, Capital Markets, Corporate Development, and External Affairs. He joined Pacaso in 2021, helping the company achieve unicorn status faster than any startup in history and has been instrumental in navigating the company's evolution from VC-backed startup to opening its cap table to retail investors.
How Pacaso Raised $72.5M from Retail Investors
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