A truly strictly performance-based capital raise marketing agency with REAL results.
I am a Florida-based real estate developer with a Reg D private equity raise for $ 1 Million. The raise is for cash equity to start construction on a flagship project (100Shore dot com), which has been extremely challenging due to the market-leading design and associated expense of this project.
Like many entrepreneurs, I don't have the high net worth individual contact rolodex and I have been attempting to raise this capital on my own for quite some time. When I decided to enlist a marketing agency to help me get in front of Accredited Investors, my very first experience was with an agency that promised me the sky for a $ 5,000 retainer and they didn't get me ONE single appointment in 90 days - not one. I have probably talked to 20 such agencies and at least 15-16 of them were outright scams only interested in getting a hefty retainer up front and then they hand you over to a subcontracted customer service rep and they don't really care whether you're successful or not. Some will charge a percentage of capital raised, which is illegal without a FINRA broker-dealer license.
I came across an add for Capital Stack and what got my attention was "strictly performance-based" and "guaranteed conversations with accredited investors or you don't pay". I've run across similar ads in the past and they were all bait and switch.
When I first spoke with Josh Thomas, the founder of Capital Stack, I immediately knew this was different. Capital Stack has a very reasonable ad spend budget on which they make no commission - paid directly to Meta. As soon as a prospect fills out the form on an ad they have placed, either Josh or his partner Tharun calls that prospect within 45 seconds - that alone sets them apart. Capital Stack qualifies the lead and stays on top of them all the way until the appointment actually shows up for the Zoom conference in addition to coordinating, placing and optimizing all ad spend. When a prospect shows and they turn out to be unqualified or not interested, there isn't even a charge for that meeting. Only when an Accredited Investor shows up and is interested in a follow-up conversation does Capital Stack charge a very reasonable modest fee. That is absolutely unheard of in the entire capital raise game as far as I know.
I have now been actively pitching only for about two and a half weeks and have spent about $ 3,500 total on ad spend and an additional $ 4,800 in Capital Stack fees to get 97 good leads, 45 booked appointments for which I got charged for 16 that were qualified, showed up and were interested in a second conversation. I am very confident two prospects I spoke to *just today alone* will commit to $ 100,000 each and feel like there's at least double that locked into the total conversations I have going so far. I am equally confident I will raise the $ 1 M required equity for a total budget of about $ 50,000 = a 5% cost of capital, which is unbelievably good. Conventional crowdfunding is considered great at a 10% cost of capital.
The quality of the leads is incredibly high, the CRM and methodology is extremely efficient and both founding partners are the only ones on the front lines and they are out there with you and always accessible through the CRM system. I am beyond delighted the targeted ad these guys had out found me as they are the critical component to helping me successfully complete this raise, something I wasn't capable of doing on my own. If I could give them 10 stars, I would.
Upon closing out this round, I will update this review with my actual numbers. Until then, anyone wanting to talk to me about my experience with Josh and Tharun of Capital Stack is more than welcome to contact me.
February 4, 2025
Unprompted review
