Prefundia

In the burgeoning world of crowdfunding in the early 2010s, a critical problem emerged for creators: the cold start. Launching a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign was like opening a restaurant with no one outside—success often depended on hitting a funding target quickly, which required momentum from day one. In 2013, a group of founders in Provo, Utah, decided to tackle this specific playbook chapter. Their idea was Prefundia, a platform designed to be the "coming soon" page for crowdfunding projects. The concept was simple: before you launch your campaign, you launch a Prefundia page. It was a dedicated space to build an email list, gauge interest, and gather a tribe of potential backers who would be ready to pledge the moment the campaign went live. This was meant to solve the empty restaurant problem. The company even gained some early validation, entering the BoomStartup accelerator and securing $20,000 in seed funding in July 2013. However, the playbook had a flaw. Initially, creators couldn't export the email addresses they collected on the platform, creating a walled garden that limited direct, long-term relationships with their new fans. While this was later changed, the platform struggled to gain the necessary network effect. For creators, building their own newsletter was a more direct alternative. Ultimately, Prefundia didn't achieve a major funding round or an acquisition. Like many startups with a good idea but a tough business model, it quietly ceased operations, becoming a footnote in the history of the crowdfunding ecosystem.