Prior to brafe.space, I have never raised funding in my life.

That might be a strange opening for a piece about why our organization built a funding platform. But it's the honest one. The pain of fundraising, the pitch decks, the sales shows, the rejections, the runway anxiety was foreign to me for a long time. The moment I understood that funding is a pivotal moment for a founder and their organization, I wasn't sitting on either side of the table. I was sitting beside it, as a coach.

I was coaching young entrepreneurs on their own inner development, and on the development of their teams and organizations. And from that seat, I noticed something I couldn't unsee: capital has the power to either take away or expand the space for that development.

The competition for a founder's attention

A founder's attention and focus live in constant competition. Where is their time best spent? Is it in product development, sales, marketing, team development? The more interesting question is: who is driving that sense of competition, and who is at the mercy of it?

In most cases I witnessed, the pressure came from outside. Shareholders dictating where the founder's energy needs to go. And when I say that capital "took away space," I felt it most in the perceived agency of the founder, the quiet shrinking of their sense that the direction was still theirs to choose. When capital created space, the opposite happened. There was room to reflect deeply and take an informed choice about which way they actually wanted to go.

So what made the difference? What was different about the money that created space?

Honestly, that answer is best given by founders themselves. But my impression was this: money is in itself neutral. It acts according to the mindset of those providing it. When the intention behind it is to empower the founder on her journey long-term, it behaves differently than when the intention is to accelerate the growth of the business short-term. And from that intention grow very different kinds of relationships between founder and funder, and very different organizations, too.

That observation is, in the end, one small part of everything we built.

Why funding sits at the core and not at the edge

When we shaped brafe.space, we could have kept it clean. Inner work programs, a community of entrepreneurs practicing multiperspectivity: meaningful, contained, uncomplicated. Instead, against all the tension and complexities, we decided to place funding quite central to our program. For two reasons.

First: funding is an integral part of an entrepreneur's reality. A development space that excludes it is a development space that excludes reality.

Second: funding provides a bridge. It is a critical mechanism through which insights from inner work and from multiple perspectives get integrated into the actual ecosystem of ventures, instead of staying behind circle or format.

Our vision for brafe.funding is to nurture and cultivate a world characterized by a broader inclusion of reality, fostering healthier and more genuine connections among individuals, within organizations, and with the environment. Central to this vision are entrepreneurs. They are pivotal change agents. They manifest the systems that either constrain or empower individuals and communities. So brafe.space's mission is to create exactly that — a space — where these entrepreneurs can evolve. Not only for their own benefit, but for the ripple effect: into their organizations, and from there into society.

Two identities, opened almost simultaneously

Here is what I didn't expect: brafe.space opened up two identities in me at nearly the same time. The identity of a founder. And the identity of a funder. Since we started, I have invested in six organizations across the for and non-profit landscape and their founders: Project Tres, Ding Dong Ping Pong, kiyo, eeden Hamburg, inne and VVSSL.

The funder identity opened up questions I had never been forced to answer before:

What do I want my resources to empower? How do I even get the information to know? When do I believe in the value of a founder and their organization and in their potential development? What is my motivation to invest: to be liked? To create impact? To be successful? And with all these reflections: when do I say no? How do I hold the disappointment of the other person?

The founder identity asked its own uncomfortable questions. I know all our members, and they are my fundraising crowd. So: how do I perceive a no? When do I feel it as personal rejection ,and why? How do I navigate my dependency on people believing in me and in the organization? When do I blame others, or the system, for not giving me money and when do I question myself and the quality of my own work?

I don't think these questions ever fully resolve. But there is a difference between carrying them unconsciously and working with them openly. That difference is the inner work.

What actually changes when funding happens inside this space

The funding within brafe.space happens among individuals. It is not institutionalized by brafe.space. Which means founders raising here are exposed to many feedbacks from real people, not from an anonymized process.

The difference we can make is the quality of that feedback: as honest, as authentic, and as related as possible, held with the awareness that it foremost carries the subjective experience of the respective investor.

And this is where the real work sits, on both sides of the table.

The funder's work: do I dare to be that vulnerable in my feedback and not hide behind technicalities or simple excuses? That requires bravery.

The founder's work: do I dare to not sell my project too much, but authentically share it as what it means to me? And am I ready to receive feedback that honest in return?

I believe this to be rare and where the biggest power sits within this space.

My own subjective lens

Looking at my own experience as an investor, I can see where my attention goes: to the entrepreneur, and to the perspective of building sustainable, longer-lasting organizations and not so much to the cause or the product in the first place. I believe the person is the lever on value creation.

I can be hyped about a topic or a specific service, product. But if I feel there is no deeper understanding of themselves as a person, and of the system they are creating, I start doubting the impact.

I know this is my very personal, subjective experience. That is precisely the point. In a space built on multiperspectivity, no single investor's lens pretends to be objective truth, mine included. It is one honest perspective among many, offered as such. The founder receives several of these, openly subjective, and keeps the agency to integrate them.

Which brings me back to where I started: agency. The thing I watched capital quietly take away from founders is the thing this environment is designed to protect.

The loop or rather, the spiral

There is one more piece, and I want to name it transparently, because how the model works is part of the intention.

With each funding placed in our space, brafe.space receives 5% of the initial funding volume as a direct cost contribution. In the case of a for-profit investment, we take a 20% participation in the potential upside.

This way, a funding placed in brafe.space does not only contribute to the founders and funders involved. It directly supports our mission: growing the space for more entrepreneurs to evolve themselves, their organizations, and society. Placing funding this central creates more space for entrepreneurs to evolve. Their evolution shapes how they steer resources further. That shapes what gets built in the world. It's an ongoing loop — or, I'd rather say, a spiral.

A closing question for both sides of the table

If you take one thing from this piece, let it be the connection: inner work, relationship, and funding are not three separate topics. They are one environment and we can choose to build environments that include them altogether.

This is not only addressed to founders. It is addressed just as much to funders. Because the intention behind your resources matters as much as the intention and consciousness with which founders steer those resources further.

So, if you fund: what do you want your resources to empower and do you dare to say why, honestly, without hiding behind technicalities?

And if you found: do you dare to show your venture as what it truly means to you and to receive an honest answer?

That, to me, is where funding stops being a transaction and starts being a relationship. And it's why, at brafe.space, it sits at the core.