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.

Get Skincall's VIP offer

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! 

Sign-up for a Dame Workshop

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. 

Visit our job board

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.

Visit Ceremonia

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.