Calm Company Fund began as Earnest Capital, which was “funding for bootstrappers” and has now become “capital, community, and mentorship for entrepreneurs building Calm Companies.” When we say “Calm Companies,” we mean sustainable companies that could last for the long run—companies that are funded first and foremost by their customers.

We’re a venture fund for early stage startups and we've been around for about three years. In that time, we’ve funded over 50 companies using our own investment vehicle called the SEAL, or the Shared Earnings Agreement.

We're not the only ones doing this—there are a few other forward thinking funds out there, essentially creating new types of funding options for founders so that in the early stages, they don't have to make a decision on going the traditional aggressive venture model versus a more profit-oriented, mindful growth that might allow the founder to never need to raise money again.

As of today, we have two yearly summits that bring together a community of calm founders and funders, as well as our mentors and our founders. We have an amazing custom-built internal platform that we offer to our founders and extended community.

We’d like to slowly become the number one resource for anyone who wants to build differently.

It's always been in our DNA to try to make the world of venture more accessible. For example, from the very beginning of Calm Company Fund, founder and GP Tyler Tringas structured the fund to have a very large number of smaller LPs rather than a small number of larger LPs. Even before AngelList, we started rolling out our own rolling funds, which allowed people to invest in small batches rather than all at once. We always wanted to make it more accessible for people to invest in our fund and our thesis. However, the laws were not on our side until very recently—you had to be an accredited investor to invest in private companies.

When the laws changed, we wanted to raise a Community Round as quickly as possible. Arlan Hamilton at Backstage Capital led the way as a venture fund raising a Community Round on Republic, and it was so exciting to see people rally. We thought, “This is the perfect opportunity for all these people who've wanted to be involved to literally be involved—and not just in some small namesake way, but genuinely. If we win, they win. We all win together.”

To test the response from our community, Tyler threw out a tweet along the lines of “This is legal now—would you want to participate?” He attached a little Airtable form to register interest, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. That clued us in that there were a lot of people waiting on the sidelines for new ways to engage with us. So we built that pathway by launching our first Community Round.

Our biggest learning throughout the process was the constant surprise at who ended up throwing their lot in with us. To feel like all these people were with us—not just following us on Twitter or reading our newsletter, but actually investing in our vision—I can't describe how supported we felt. Many of the founders in our portfolio ended up investing in our Community Round too. They gave back to our community again.

Reading our investors’ comments cemented the idea that we're building Calm Company Fund not just for us, but for our broader community—and that we need to exist. As a remote and asynchronous team, the “What People Say” section of our Community Round is now a place that I send new team members during onboarding. It’s one of many touchpoints that helps people understand, "Why are we here, and who are we beholden to?"

Some amazing people from all over the world, particularly women and folks of color, have been able to join in this journey with us. The community that we work in is not necessarily the most accessible. There are a lot of identities and backgrounds that are underrepresented, and underestimated, as Backstage Capital would put it. Bringing people in on a Community Round gave us the opportunity to expand who gets to be part of our success. While it’s not perfect, we’re happy that we made this vision a reality through our Community Round.

One of our Community Round investors, Caro Griffin who is the VP of Tech Ladies and founder of operations community Opsy, hosted a coworking session for our last summit in Mexico City, sent out a nomad guide to our attendees, and was a wonderful local touchpoint.

Another Community Round investor has ended up being great at referring us to folks. Continuing to engage the people who invested in our Community Round will be a constant work in progress for us, and we’re excited to see what will come of it.

Our Community Round roots us more deeply with the people that we're serving, and it's incredibly good for keeping us focused on what we have to do. A lot of companies start from the point of, "I think this should exist," but something incredibly powerful about a Community Round is feeling rooted in "we think this should exist, and now we're building it together." The vision behind that is exponentially stronger.