He read through scads of e-mails, and then sent 300 rejection letters, some to Silicon Valley’s most elite seed-stage startups. Only six proposals won his approval and his highly coveted prize: $37 transmitted via PayPal.

So what are the winners spending their investment money on? Everything from gooseberry seeds to cake pops to beer to WordPress themes. Mostly, though, they’re buying web hosting. And they say the small seed investment is oddly motivating.

Ceglowski’s $222 fund, the Pinboard Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud, has generated wildly disproportionate interest in Silicon Valley, captivating budding entrepreneurs within startup incubators like YCombinator and attracting co-investment offers from powerhouse venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who usually deals in sums exponentially larger. (In this case, Andreessen has offered to pony up $300 total.)