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Rand Pauls presidential campaign is rooted in railing against the establishment. Now, as the Kentucky Republican embarks on a White House bid, he hopes to build a coalition of Silicon Valley libertarians and online grass-roots contributors, and to woo nontraditional GOP donors to raise the tens of millions of dollars needed to run a competitive primary race.

Mostly starved of Wall Street money, Paul is turning to Silicon Valley and to major donors and bundlers in target-rich cities like Dallas and Chicago, promising them a voice in creating policy through councils he hopes to establish across the country. And hes looking to take a page from the campaigns of his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, by aggressive online fundraising.

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The strategy looks more akin to what might be expected if Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren were to run for president. Like Warren, the Kentucky Republican has regularly railed against corporate welfare and has said Republicans cant be the party of fat cats, rich people, and Wall Street, a posture that has almost universally alienated him from a traditional source of campaign cash.

Paul, who will launch a five-day, five-state presidential bid Tuesday in Kentucky, has been gaming out his dollar dance for more than a year regularly reaching out to Californias tech community to create alliances with deep-pocketed industry executives and billionaire entrepreneurs concerned about policy issues like privacy.

Part of the message hes sending out to the tech community [is] that, I want to be close to you, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. And part of it is that he sees a naturally ally there in terms of fundraising and messaging, and I think it will be well-received.

Indeed, Pauls first official fundraiser as a presidential candidate is Friday at the home of Ron Sechrist, founder of oxygen and respiratory equipment manufacturing company Sechrist Industries, and his wife Helena, in Newport Beach, California. Helena Sechrist contributed $2,400 to another expected GOP presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina, when she ran for U.S. Senate in 2010.

While Paul has regularly traveled to California, tech industry lobbyists say he made his case to the industry during a recent trip to Austin, Texas, for the annual South by Southwest summit. He took the stage for a high-profile fireside chat to talk tech policy and broadcast his travels on the newly popular live-streaming app Meerkat and he even raised some money at a fundraiser co-hosted by CEA, according to the group.

I think that speaks volumes to the fact he recognizes this is an important voting bloc, and this is an important sector to court, said Internet Association President Michael Beckerman. Asked how he compares to the other GOP hopefuls, given his early outreach: Early relationships go a long way. Its yet to be seen who else is going to run and how other relationships develop over the next year and a half or so, but being first goes a long way.

But Pauls potential disconnect with Silicon Valley also surfaced: He spoke, for example, against the Obama administrations position on net neutrality, a salient and emotional issue among the younger, Web-savvy crowd.

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Rand Paul sees gold in Silicon Valley