The app now has 1,800 Canadian co-owners, and the funding period is being extended until January.
Gander, a social media app positioned as a Canadian alternative to Meta or X, has reached its fundraising goal.
Interest in the project is so high that Gander extended the crowdfunding deadline until January, rather than closing in mid-December.
Ben Waldman, CEO of Gander Social, wrote in LinkedIn on Wednesday the team surpassed $1.5 million in equity crowdfunding on Tuesday night. At the time of writing, approximately $300,000 more investments were in process, bringing the likely total closer to $2 million. Waldman said the level of interest in the project is so high that Gander extended the crowdfunding deadline until January rather than closing in mid-December.
The company had crossed the $1 million mark just last month.
Gander says he's targeting a captive market of more than 30 million Canadians who use social media apps more than two hours a day, many of whom may be looking for an alternative to U.S. tech giants. The company's platform will be designed, built and hosted in Canada on Canadian servers with an emphasis on privacy. It will be built on decentralized open source protocols such as AT, which is currently used by Bluesky.
Gander is raising funding through FrontFund noA Crowdfunding platform in Toronto it allows members of the public to crowdsource investments into private companies.
Interested investors can buy shares for as little as $255 at $1.50 per share, which gives them access to the private ownership group on the social platform, additional invitations to attract users to the platform before its public release and access to Gander's annual general meeting.
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Waldman said raising capital from the Canadian public is consistent with the app's shared ownership mission. Or, to put it in Canadian, he hopes “just give it”
The app's strategic advisors include prominent Canadians, including business media personalities Arlene Dickinson and Amber Mac. More than 34,000 people signed up for the early access waitlist, which launched this spring. Gander is registered as a public benefit company in British Columbia, meaning its mandate is focused on social or environmental benefit as well as profit. Charitable companies are structured similarly to non-profit organizations, with additional transparency and accountability requirements, and are committed to conducting business in a “responsible and sustainablemanner.
In a recent social media post, Waldman said the app is currently being tested. “Is it beautiful? Yes. Is it buggy? Also yes. But it's finally in our hands to disassemble it, test it and write reports while we invite our beta testers to do the same,” he wrote on the page LinkedIn in October.
The company previously told BetaKit that it plans to beta test the app this winter with a public launch in the first quarter of 2026.
With files from Alex Riehl
Image courtesy of Gander Social.
