In late 2020, a group of Stanford students banded together to create Stanford 0220, a venture fund solely to invest in their fellow classmates’ ventures. Given the school’s past in spinning out successful startup founders, it unsurprisingly had no trouble raising $1.5 million for the debut investment vehicle - waitlist not included.

Now, two years later, the leader of that club, Steph Mui, is trying to replicate that playbook in the form of a venture backed startup, and solo entrepreneurship. PIN, which stands for power of numbers, has freshly raised a $5.6 million seed funding round led by Initialized Capital, with investments from GSR, NEA, and Canaan.

PIN wants to replicate the Stanford 2020 story for other community-based ventures. The company says that it provides interested clubs with the back office framework, legal and tax support and has a platform where leaders can look for capital raise opportunities, meet other members and manage portfolios. It makes money through a SaaS fee, which Mui says she hopes stays below 2% of a club's total assets under management.

“Anyone who has started an investing vehicle, whether it's an investment club to a traditional fund, knows how difficult it is because of all the administrative obligations there are to make sure the fund is set up properly and is compliant,” Mui explained. “Community investment clubs are even more difficult because of the number of investors (a club can commonly have hundreds of members), which introduces even more friction during the fundraising process and ongoing operations.”

The startup isn’t sitting too far from companies like AngelList, which is unbundling the founder experience, and Republic, which is trying to make it easier for anyone to invest in startups.

A newly-funded startup all about helping people break into the venture capital investment world and land coveted cap table spots feels very 2020. During a downturn, the pitch seems more risky. For example, as founders enter a period of uncertainty, the appeal of having one dedicated investor may take precedence over a party round of advisors with varying ownership, VSC Ventures’ Jay Kapoor told TechCrunch last week. “The problem with those party rounds was when it came time for somebody to step up and really support the company, they weren't there," Kapoor said.