More than 1,300 investors backed the sovereign social media platform in just a week.
Canadian-focused social media platform Gander Social raised over $1 million in its first equity round crowdfunding campaign.
The Ottawa-based company received funding from more than 1,300 Canadian investors in just a week. FrontFund noA ToronTo-based crowdfunding platform this gives private companies the opportunity to raise capital through a private placement. Gander said the first $500,000 was raised “within hours” and eight days later it surpassed the $1 million goal.
Gander set an initial goal of getting 500,000 Canadians onto the sovereign platform.
Founded this year by CEO Ben Waldman, Gander hopes to create a sovereign Canadian social network not subject to the whims of American giants like Elon Musk's X or Mark Zuckerberg's Meta. The company says it has attracted 34,000 subscribers so far, with Arlene Dickinson counting. Amber MacTaylor Owen and Blaine Cook as advisors.
Waldman joined Podcast BetaKit last month to reveal what his version of social media would look like and what inspired him to create it.
“Trump started calling us the 51st state. I started to realize that with the cloud technology we're using now, an executive order could actually shut down Canada pretty quickly,” Waldman said on the podcast. “These discussions around data sovereignty really just coincided with what was happening on social media and looking at open protocols like AT protocolrealizing that things could be different and we could make it independent and give people a better experience that they can actually control.”
The AT protocol is an open-source social networking platform used by competitive social networks such as Bluesky. The protocol allows different social apps to connect and share data, giving users more control over their data. Waldman said on the BetaKit podcast that Gander intends to use the underlying technology created by Interac and Canada Post to verify identities.
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Gander set the minimum investment for FrontFundr at $255 and gave investors a say in the platform's design, early access to new features, friend invitations, and equity. The funds secured will be used to prepare for the public launch of Gander in 2026 by attracting Canadians to the platform, building the team and expanding the feature set.
Specifically, Gander will hire engineering, trust and safety, and development staff to support the launch, while expanding features such as creator tools, verified accounts, and channel control. According to the company, Gander has an initial goal of attracting 500,000 Canadians to the sovereign platform and will use a subscription-based model with “no surveillance advertising and no selling of user data.”
“Thousands [early supporters] They have invested and shown us that they are tired of being manipulated by foreign big tech companies, tired of misinformation, tired of hate speech, tired of divisiveness,” Waldman said in a statement. “They have invested their hard-earned dollars to build something better in Canada, and they are ready for Gander to give the oligarchs a run for their money.”
According to Gander FrontFrundr The company's page focuses on profitability, independence and sustainable growth by “creating recurring revenues and a defensible share of the Canadian market” and may eventually consider a public listing.
Gander said it will launch a beta version of its social media platform in the coming weeks to stress test the platform, gather feedback from real users, identify bugs and refine key features before it opens to the public at the end of the first quarter of 2026. Gander's FrontFundr campaign is open for another 42 days.
Artistic image courtesy of John Fingas of BetaKit.
