# Funding paths for founders

Seven ways to pay for early software work, compared by what each asks of the company: customers, awards, loans, shares, convertible instruments and crowds.

Canonical URL: https://worldenterprise.org/briefs/funding-paths/
Last updated: 2026-10-10
Publisher: World Enterprise, run by World Enterprise Group Incorporated

Founders are often shown funding as a menu, with the amount of money on offer as the only column. This brief reads the same options from the other side and asks what each one requires of the company once the money has arrived.

It covers seven paths: revenue and savings, federal research awards, loans, private sales of shares, convertible instruments, priced rounds and regulated crowdfunding. For each path it reports what a public source says the mechanism is, then separates that report from analysis of which kind of company the path tends to suit.

It also lists questions to put to any path before committing, and it sets out the limits of what its sources can show. Those include rules that change, facts specific to your company and every jurisdiction outside the United States.

The brief is general information for founders. It is not legal, tax or investment advice.

## What is inside

- The question this brief answers
- About the evidence
- How to read the paths
- Path one: customers and the founder's own money
- Path two: government research awards
- Path three: loans
- Path four: selling shares in a private placement
- Path five: convertible instruments such as the SAFE
- Path six: a priced equity round
- Path seven: crowdfunding to the public
- A tax note on shares
- The paths side by side
- Questions to ask before choosing
- What this brief cannot tell you
- Sources