Sweet relief for Gold-coast startup Cake Equity as it raises $3m in seed funding

Gold Coast-based tech company Cake Equity (Cake) has raised USD$2.2 million ($3 million) in seed capital to bolster plans to further expand into 20 new countries in the next 18 months.

The funding round, led by LAUNCH, TheSyndicate.com, and Rampersand, follows the recent launch of the all-in-one equity management platform in Singapore, the US, the UK and India.

Simplifying how startups and scaleups manage employee options, raise capital and manage shareholders, the Software as a Service (SaaS) company has been growing steadily since its founding in 2018.

“At Cake, we want to be the catalyst for more startups to get funded so that they can change the world while making sure that their teams share in that success,” Cake Equity co-founder Jason Atkins said.

“This round of funding will help us continue to deliver on our vision of creating more equity owners through cap tables that are easy to use, everywhere.”

Co-founded by Atkins and Kim Hansen, the business previously raised $1 million in 2020 and now has more than 2,000 companies and 50,000 shareholders using its platform, including Who Gives a Crap, Vow and Fresh Equities. The latest raise included participation from Airtasker (ASX: ART) co-founder Jonathan Lui and Practice Ignition co-founder Guy Pearson.

Cake’s platform aims to speed up the complicated process of managing and unlocking equity whilst remaining legally compliant. The idea for the business originated from a desire by the founders to innovate existing challenging pain points for many new companies.

The software is aimed at emerging un-listed businesses looking to raise money and provides services from signing to calculations and comes with built-in legal agreements to keep track of equity transactions.

In addition, the software allows companies to better incentivise staff by cutting out some of the administration around offering employee share options.

“We are excited to back the Cake team as they build the next generation of equity management tools,” Jason Calacanis of LAUNCH and The Syndicate.com said.

“We’re inspired by Cake’s aspiration to empower more founders and their teams to change the world - because at Rampersand we share the same vision,” co-founder and managing partner at Rampersand, Paul Naphtali said.

“Cake is further proof that Australian start-ups can create the best global technology solution to fundamental problems, and we look forward to accelerating Cake’s impact within the start-up ecosystem.” 

In May 2021, Cake joined Pledge 1%; a movement co-founded by Australian software giant Atlassian that sees companies donate 1 per cent of shares to philanthropic organisations.