Reg CF Solved Access. Now We Need Activation.

Delivered June 12, 2026 @ 5:00pm ET

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Table of Contents

• SpaceX goes public

• Reg CF Solved Access. Now We Need Activation.

My name is Gerry Hays, Founder & CEO of Doriot® (pronounced “Doe-ree-oh”), named after French-born American U.S. General Georges Doriot, the father of Venture Capital. I’m also an author (First Time Founders’s Equity Bible), inventor (U.S. patents for ads on t-shirts, coat checking, and VentureStaking - pending), and 21-year professor of venture capital and entrepreneurial finance at Indiana University.

Democratize Venture is my platform to explore the venture markets and share the insights, strategies, and frameworks I bring into the classroom. It’s also a way for me to share principles of prosperity — because at the end of the day, venture is a pathway to prosperity.

SpaceX goes public

Today is a historic day for the capital markets.

SpaceX raised $88 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation and finished its first day of trading up 19%, making it more valuable than Tesla.

As a result, Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire—at least on paper. To put that into perspective, a trillion is one million multiplied by one million.

The IPO also created thousands of new millionaires, again on paper, reinforcing a theme I've written about often: capital is playing an increasingly outsized role in wealth creation relative to labor. The largest fortunes of our era are not being created through wages and salaries. They are being created through ownership.

Love him or hate him, Elon Musk's impact on business, technology, and capital markets is impossible to deny. Few entrepreneurs have built companies at this scale across so many industries, and today's milestone cements his place in business history.

Now begins the next chapter. Will SpaceX ultimately justify this valuation? Will it exceed expectations? Those questions will be answered over the coming decades.

For today, congratulations to everyone who took the early risk, contributed to the mission, and helped build one of the most extraordinary companies of our time.

Reg CF Solved Access. Now We Need Activation.

This week, KingsCrowd published data showing that May was the weakest month for Regulation Crowdfunding since 2021. Total capital raised declined significantly, breakout campaigns were scarce, and activity across much of the ecosystem appeared noticeably thinner. While there are always month-to-month explanations for market movements, the broader trend raises an important question: why does retail venture continue to feel fragile despite having more access, more platforms, and more awareness than ever before?

Most industry participants immediately look toward regulation for answers. Some argue that investment limits are too restrictive. Others point to disclosure requirements, compliance costs, or market conditions.

I think we may be asking the wrong question.

Over the past decade, Regulation Crowdfunding accomplished something remarkable. It opened the door for everyday investors to participate in private markets. Prior to the JOBS Act, venture investing was largely reserved for accredited investors, institutions, and industry insiders. Reg CF fundamentally changed that.

But opening a door and building a market are not the same thing.

The internet offers a useful analogy. The early internet wasn't a failure. It was simply the first version. Over time, new layers emerged that made the ecosystem more useful, more accessible, and more valuable. Search engines helped people discover information. Social networks helped people connect. Mobile devices changed how people interacted with the web. Entire industries emerged on top of the original infrastructure.

Retail venture may be entering a similar phase of evolution.

I increasingly believe the challenge is not access. The challenge is activation.

To understand why, it helps to think about how venture capital has historically worked. Venture investing has never really been about transactions. It has been about networks. Angel groups, venture firms, accelerators, founder communities, university ecosystems, and professional networks all play an important role in helping people discover opportunities, develop judgment, and build conviction before capital is ever invested.

The problem is that these activation systems were built for relatively small groups of participants. They work well when the audience consists of founders, operators, angels, and accredited investors. They do not naturally scale to tens of millions of people.

Reg CF changed that equation.

For the first time, private market investing became accessible to ordinary investors at scale. Suddenly, the potential audience wasn't a few hundred thousand angels and venture capitalists. It was millions of people who were interested in innovation, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation. People who understood that some of the greatest wealth creation events in history occur long before a company reaches the public markets. (See SpaceX above)

Many of these individuals have probably said the same thing at some point:

"I wish I could have gotten in at the very beginning."

The industry often interprets that statement as investment demand. I think it is better understood as activation demand.

There is a significant difference between being interested in venture and being prepared to participate in venture. One is curiosity. The other requires education, experience, confidence, and community. Traditional venture ecosystems create those outcomes through networks. Retail venture still lacks a scalable mechanism to do the same thing.

That is why I increasingly think about venture as four layers.

The first layer is Venture Interest. This is where people become fascinated by innovation and emerging companies.

The second layer is Venture Activation. This is where individuals learn how venture works, discover founders, evaluate opportunities, and develop the judgment necessary to participate intelligently.

The third layer is Venture Investing. This is where capital is allocated through angel investing, venture funds, Regulation Crowdfunding, Regulation A+, and other investment structures.

The fourth layer is Venture Liquidity, where value is ultimately realized through acquisitions, secondary markets, and public offerings.

What strikes me about the current retail venture ecosystem is how much attention we devote to the third layer while largely ignoring the second.

In many ways, this is exactly where the internet found itself decades ago. Access existed, but the supporting layers had not yet been built. Search, social, mobile, and cloud computing ultimately expanded the market by making participation easier and more valuable. They transformed passive users into active participants.

Retail venture may need a similar evolution.

At Doriot, we believe there is a missing layer between passive retail interest and venture investing. We call that layer Venture Activation. The idea behind VentureStaking® is not to replace venture investing. It is to create a pathway that helps people develop conviction, build judgment, and participate in innovation before they commit capital.

If that thesis is correct, then the future growth of retail venture may not come from more platforms or more offerings. It may come from activating millions of people who are already interested but have never been given a structured way to participate.

Reg CF solved the access problem. The next chapter of retail venture may be solving the activation problem.

Have a great weekend -gerry