London-based tech agency Goodstack has secured £22 million in enterprise capital funding, positioning it to facilitate £2.4 billion in worker donations to good causes this 12 months.
The corporate, whose platform is utilised by main companies corresponding to HSBC, LinkedIn, and design software program agency Canva, has been quietly investing the capital raised from San Francisco-based Basic Catalyst and different buyers to realize its bold purpose.
Based in 2015 by college mates Henry Ludlam, 33, and Stefan Greer, 34, Goodstack was initially referred to as P.c. It initially enabled retailers to reward scholar purchases by directing a small proportion again to their chosen campus groups or golf equipment. Nevertheless, in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, the duo recognized a chance to revolutionise company philanthropy by simplifying the method for workers to donate to vetted charities, colleges, and non-profits worldwide.
“We have 13 million in our database,” Ludlam mentioned, emphasising that each one organisations have been completely verified. Goodstack generates income by offering firms with entry to its platform, sometimes leaving worker donations freed from expenses aside from transaction charges levied by card issuers. “As a general rule, we try to get the corporates to cover the cost,” he added.
In contrast to well-known charitable platforms corresponding to JustGiving, GoFundMe, and Crowdfunder—which take a proportion price and encourage donors to depart non-compulsory ideas—Goodstack’s mannequin focuses on company partnerships to minimise prices for particular person donors.
The platform has facilitated a surge in donations to charities together with the Pink Cross, Most cancers Analysis UK, and Oxfam, in addition to to catastrophe aid efforts in response to occasions like tropical cyclone Carina within the Philippines and up to date floods in Spain. From processing $50,000 in donations in 2020, Goodstack dealt with $1 billion final 12 months and is on monitor to handle $3 billion this 12 months.
“There was a massive gap in the market for doing something like us,” Ludlam famous. “All the current players were very locally focused. No one had built the one layer of software that makes it as easy to give in America as it is in Vietnam, South Africa, or Fiji.”
Ludlam and Greer met throughout their first 12 months at Manchester College, sharing a flat in Oak Home, Fallowfield. The corporate now employs 60 individuals and the founders retain a “significant minority” shareholding, having raised a complete of $33 million in enterprise capital. Nationwide Constructing Society was an early investor however has since divested its stake.
Basic Catalyst, which first invested in 2021, has a monitor document of backing high-growth tech corporations, together with Airbnb, Irish funds large Stripe, and social messaging service Snap at early phases of their growth.
