Aptera builds a solar electric vehicle. It looks like nothing else on the road, and when we started working together, most people had never heard of it. The company was raising money from the public through a Reg A+ offering, and it needed to move fast.
Aptera put $2M into media with us. It raised $135M. That's $67.50 back for every dollar of ad spend, alongside more than 48,000 vehicle presales. In 2025, Aptera listed on Nasdaq.
Campaign specifics stay between us and Aptera. But a few things about raises like this hold no matter who's running them, so here's what I'd tell anyone planning one.
An investor isn't a customer
When you sell a product, the buyer asks one question: do I want this? When you raise from the public, they're asking two. Do I believe in this product, and do I want to own a piece of the company behind it? The second question takes longer to answer, and it needs a different story.
That means the media has to carry both. People need to understand the product well enough to get excited about it, and the business well enough to put money behind it. Lean too hard on either one and the other falls apart.
The rules are part of the brief
Advertising an offering isn't like advertising a sneaker. Every ad has to line up with the offering circular, carry the disclosures the rules require, and point people to the full documents. Nothing can promise a return.
For what it's worth, the teams that struggle here treat legal review as the last step. Build it into the production schedule from day one, and the creative gets better, not slower, because everyone knows the lines before they start writing.
Measure the investment, not the click
A raise produces a lot of activity that looks like progress: page visits, sign-ups, interest forms, reservations. Those all matter, but they aren't the goal. The goal is a completed investment.
So decide up front which action you're paying for, and report each one on its own: an inquiry, a reservation, a completed investment, each with its own cost. If you blend them, a jump in cheap sign-ups can hide the fact that investments stalled.
Their efforts had a profound impact on the millions raised, making them an invaluable part of Aptera's journey. — Head of Digital Marketing and Public Relations, Aptera Motors
Precision beats spend, again
We've said it about a film launch and we'll say it here. A small budget wins when it only ever lands on people who are genuinely likely to act. $2M isn't much against a $135M outcome. It didn't need to be.
If you're planning a raise, or you're an agency with a client who is, we'd love to hear about it. Tell us the goal and the timeline, and we'll walk you through how we'd approach it.
Sources and further reading
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