When Austin Allison, CEO and co-founder of Pacaso, joined DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba for an exclusive webinar, he opened with a surprising admission and a clear acknowledgment of partnership value.
“Rebecca, thanks for having us today and thanks for your partnership in our Reg A offering. It was really a pleasure to work with you and the team,” Austin began. “To be honest, I wasn’t even aware of Reg A as an option a year and a half ago. It was something that kind of stumbled across our desk somehow.”
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This is the reality for most founders today. Despite Regulation A+ raising over $9.4 billion from more than 800 issuers since its modernization in 2015, many venture-backed companies don’t even know it exists as a strategic option for growth-stage capital raising. Combined with $1.3 billion raised through Regulation CF, online capital formation has become a proven alternative to traditional venture capital.
What started as Pacaso exploring Regulation A+ for their financing business quickly evolved into something much bigger. As Austin, David Willbrand (Pacaso’s Chief Legal Officer), and their board worked with the DealMaker team to dig deeper into the opportunity, they became “so bullish on this as a channel that it seemed obvious to us that this is how we wanted to raise our fourth round of capital.”
But this wasn’t just about finding another way to raise money. It was about alignment with something core to Pacaso’s identity.
Democratization as Mission, Not Marketing
For Pacaso, the decision to open their cap table to retail investors wasn’t a tactical pivot. It was a strategic extension of who they already were as a company.
“What Pacaso does as a business is democratizes access to luxury vacation homes,” Austin explained. “Prior to that, the company that I was with, Zillow, which my co-founder Spencer Raskoff led as CEO for about 15 years, was about democratizing access to information. So Reg A is about democratizing access to the opportunity.”
This alignment matters more than founders realize. When your capital strategy reinforces your brand mission, it creates authenticity that resonates with both investors and customers. You’re not just asking people to invest, you’re inviting them to participate in the same vision you’re building for your market.
For Pacaso, that meant giving their community the same access to ownership that they provide for luxury vacation homes. The symmetry was powerful, and as soon as they recognized it, “we knew that this is the way that we wanted to raise our next round of capital.”
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