Tom Serres faced a choice. The 30-year-old CEO of Rally.org-a three-year-old fundraising website for nonprofits, political campaigns and other causes-had just raised $3.5 million in Series A financing from some serious Silicon Valley investors: Linkedln founder Reid Hoffman from Greylock Partners, Mike Maples of Floodgate and Lean Startup author Eric Ries. But he needed more dough. With such endorsement Serres could've raised money in a drawn-out road show that would distract him from Rally for months. Or the crowdfunding evangelist could do something completely unprecedented: "Eat his own dog food" and raise cash-for a multimillion-dollar venture round-from the Internet in one manic flash. By opening the round to investors around the world, Serres theorized, he could capitalize on the attraction of his brand-name investors, set a definite time line and condense the fundraising process into a matter of days.
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