Dawn Dickson

This article was originally published on 07/01/2019 In April 2019, I became the first Black woman ( arguably the first Black person ) to raise over $1 million in capital through a secure token offering (STO) equity crowdfunding raise, using Title III of the JOBS Act . This groundbreaking legislation signed into law by President Obama in 2012 loosened restrictions on capital raising for small businesses and allows companies to solicit capital from the general public ( accredited and non-accredited ). This is different from donation-based crowdfunding platforms (like Kickstarter and GoFundMe), where contributors may receive discounts on certain items or receive early access to a company’s new products, but never an equity stake. In 2017, I raised close to $1 million for my company, PopCom, from accredited VCs and angel investors including TechStars and Backstage Capital. This process was exhausting. The requirement to be accredited and write a minimum check of $10,000 prevented many...

This article was originally published on 02/04/2019 Since early 2018, I have been going pretty hard at fundraising for my smart vending tech company, PopCom. I’ve also been quite deliberate in sharing how alternate sources of funding are desirable to me as a founder, making sure to be as transparent and relatable as possible in the way I share my journey through my personal blog and across all of my social media outlets. The self-education, the discovery, and most usefully–the trial and error–have defined a significant portion of my experience in entrepreneurship. However, I intentionally avoided publicly sharing details around some of the events, which led me to seek investment in PopCom, outside of the VC structure. Fact is, I had some extremely disappointing, perception-altering experiences with venture funding. However, I am not alone. Many of my contemporaries share similar stories, each with varying degrees of intensity, and in some cases, severity. As a female founder of...