Super cool program to get DTC brands in front of investors and experienced judges (including a few who've built billion-dollar brands from scratch). With the design, copy, social media, etc of this launch, we really tried to ask ourselves—how can we cast the net as wide as possible while keeping the quality bar high?

Raise DTC is Mercury's answer to the ecommerce space's need for funding accessibility. Our team has gotten together some exciting judges for our first event and we're looking forward to some great companies that will pitch! As a marketer, I've really enjoyed watching the visual brand story crafted by our designers Dani & Paul come to life—it's unlike anything Mercury has done before.

I love that Mercury is expanding the Raise offering to DTC. Having started a DTC brand, getting access to capital and qualified investors is a huge challenge when you're concurrently focused on building a brand and trying to take a product to market. By enabling brands to have access to high-quality judges and investors, we are hoping to enable more DTC brands to achieve scale and success in the market.

Excited to see the team's hard work finally go live! I hope we can make an impact and help our favorite DTC brands succeed

Super excited to unveil this new program. We built Raise for Seed and Series A companies over the past year to help empower startup founders to get funded and take their companies to the next level. As we dug more into the ecommerce/DTC space, we found that there was nothing like this in the space to help lift up exciting new brands and help them raise funding. Given the publicity needs of emerging brands, we decided to center Raise DTC around a live pitch day via Stonks to maximize funding opportunities as well as brand exposure. We’re thrilled to launch this new program and to widen the net of founders we’re able to help!

I loved designing the visual language of the Raise program, and specifically Raise DTC. We focused on the use of light and color of a sunrise to represent the creation and evolution of a business venture. By taking the form of soft gradients and warm imagery, organic movement makes semblance of solid matter in a delightful endeavor of growth. We also incorporated the concept of embossed typography through the play with materiality and depth, to depict the process of forming a business.