Canada-focused social media platform Gander Social has raised over $1 million through the first phase of its equity crowdfunding campaign.
The Ottawa-based company secured funding from over 1,300 Canadian investors in just over a week through FrontFundr, a Toronto-based crowdfunding platform that offers a means for private companies to raise capital through private placements. Gander said the first $500,000 was raised “within a matter of hours,” and that it exceeded its $1 million target eight days later.
Gander has set an initial target of attracting 500,000 Canadians to the sovereign platform.
Founded this year by CEO Ben Waldman, Gander hopes to provide 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 signups so far, and counts Arlene Dickinson, Amber Mac, Taylor Owen, and Blaine Cook as advisors.
Waldman joined The BetaKit Podcast last month to break down what his version of social media will look like and what inspired him to create it.
“Trump started calling us the 51st state. I started to realize that under the cloud tech we’re currently using, an executive order can really just shut down Canada quite quickly,” Waldman said on the podcast. “Those discussions around data sovereignty really just coincided with what was happening in social media, and looking at open protocols like AT Protocol, the realization that things could be different and we could make this sovereign and give people a better experience they actually have control of.”
The AT Protocol is an open-source social networking framework used by challenger social media platforms like Bluesky. The protocol allows different social apps to connect and exchange data while giving users more control over their data. Waldman said on The BetaKit Podcast that Gander intends to leverage core tech built by Interac and Canada Post for identity verification.
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Gander set the minimum investment on FrontFundr at $255, and gave investors a say in platform design, early access to new features, friend invitations, and equity. The secured funds will be used to prepare for Gander’s public launch in 2026 by onboarding Canadians to the platform, building out its team, and expanding its feature set.
Specifically, Gander will hire engineers, trust and safety staff, and growth roles to support the launch while expanding on features like creator tools, verified accounts, and feed control. Gander has set an initial target of attracting 500,000 Canadians to the sovereign platform, and will use a subscription-based model “without surveillance ads or selling user data,” according to the company.
“Thousands of [early supporters] have invested and shown us they’re tired of being manipulated by foreign big tech, tired of disinformation, hate speech, division,” Waldman said in a statement. “They’ve put up their hard-earned dollars to build something better in Canada, and they’re ready for Gander to give the oligarchs a run for their money.”
According to Gander’s FrontFrundr page, the company is focusing on profitability, independence, and sustainable growth by “creating recurring revenues and a defensible Canadian market share,” 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 real-world user feedback, surface bugs, and refine key features before it opens to the public late in the first quarter of 2026. Gander’s FrontFundr campaign is open for another 42 days.
Feature image courtesy Jon Fingas for BetaKit.