We launched Collective to the world in September 2020, introducing the first online, back-office platform crafted for businesses-of-one. Our vision was simple — enabling members to be more successful by focusing on their passion, not their paperwork.
It’s been a wild ride since then.
As entrepreneurs, we believe that access to world class financial services shouldn’t be limited to the wealthy. As immigrants, we believe that it should be easier for people of all backgrounds to be their own boss. As people, we believe that technology can be used to make work easier for millions.
Collective has grown eight fold since our seed. Nearly 20,000 amazing founders have applied for membership. And most importantly, we have saved our average member over $10,000 annually in taxes by taking care of everything from business incorporation to accounting and tax services — all in one platform.
Our growth is propelled by a massive shift in the workforce. Employees continue to become founders at a rapid clip. According to Upwork, nearly two million Americans started freelancing in the last year. Today solopreneurs are the largest group of founders in the country — almost 36% of the workforce are now businesses-of-one. Tomorrow this community will be the majority of the workforce, representing over 50% of workers by 2026.
Today, I’m pleased to announce our $20 million Series A financing, led by General Catalyst and joined by previous investors Expa, QED and Gradient. With this financing, we’ll continue to aggressively invest in our technology and team to serve the growing community of founders who want to experience the freedom and independence of being self-employed.
Collective’s members are some of the hardest working solo founders in the country — leading writers, world-class marketers, top-notch engineers, prominent coaches and more. They are creators and builders. They are the passion economy and the passion economy is the new American dream.
To help us expand our membership among these rising creators, we’re excited to welcome Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary to our investor team, via Sound Ventures. Ashton, Guy and the Sound team are not only creatives themselves but also have helped fuel the creator and builder ecosystem by supporting companies like Brigit, Acorns and Lambda School.
Alongside them, we also welcome as new investors a group of unparalleled entrepreneurs and tech executives. These business leaders have created iconic platforms that fuel the passion economy, future of work, and digital services and include Sam Yam (Patreon), Steve Chen (Youtube), Kevin Lin (Twitch), Nick Ganju (ZocDoc), Eddie Hartman (Legalzoom), Shadiah Sigala (Honeybook), Somrat Niyogi (Gusto), Aaron Levie (Box), Tim Young (Dropbox), Elad Gil (Color), Adrian Aoun (Forward), Andrew Dudum (Hims), Jenna Hannon (Uber), Holly Liu (Kabam), Eric Wu (Opendoor), Bebe Cheuh (Atrium), and so many more.
We’ve learned a lot as we’ve grown. Finance is personal. Trust is earned by consistency, quality results and a dedication to continuous improvement. We’re in business to support people, but like all people, we make mistakes.
We’re deeply grateful to our membership for their partnership and understanding as we evolve. We’re excited for the road ahead as we work together to unleash the passion economy.
Together, we are Collective.
