givestar raises £9M to build the tech layer for modern fundraising
What's the deal? givestarDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a UK fundraising technology company, has raised £9 million to accelerate its plan to build the technology layer behind modern charitable giving. MerciaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with participation from Love VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? The startup connects charities, fundraisers, donors, and events on a single platform. It began by turning smartphones into contactless donation points after its co-founders saw that giving had failed to keep pace with a cashless world.
To date, nearly 800,000 accounts have been created on givestar, helping raise more than $70 million from millions of donors for over 4,000 charities. With 76% of users under 35, the platform is also linking charities to younger donors and fundraisers.
Why now? givestar is embedding itself where fundraising begins. It is the official fundraising platform for UK event partners including RunThroughDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Tough Mudder UK, Spartan UKDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Ultra XDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, creating a network effect: events bring in fundraisers, who bring donors, who become supporters charities can keep.
US expansion: The funding will fund continued UK growth and a major US push. givestar already runs partnerships across more than 70 US events, including Bay to BreakersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the Las Vegas MarathonDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and the Portland MarathonDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and was named official US fundraising partner to Spartan and Tough Mudder earlier this year.
What they're saying: "When we started givestar, we'd noticed that young people hadn't stopped caring about causes — they'd just stopped carrying cash. So we put the collection tin on the phone," said co-founder Tom Montague. He added that the money "gives us the firepower to take that ambition much further, particularly in the US."
The signal: Fundraising behaviour has shifted sharply over the past decade, but the technology serving charities has lagged. As Mercia's Hugo Lough put it, what stood out was "not only the technology the team has built, but the network they are creating around it" — a bet that owning the moment people sign up to give is where the value lies.
Read more: businesscloud.co.uk
Image credit: Givestr
