givestar, a fundraising technology company connecting events, fundraisers, donors and charities, has raised £9 million to accelerate its ambition to build the technology layer powering modern fundraising.
The round – led by Mercia, with participation from Love Ventures – will fuel continued UK growth and a major expansion in the US.
It is the largest round completed by a UK fundraising technology platform.
Founded after its co-founders recognised that charitable giving had failed to keep pace with an increasingly cashless world, givestar began by turning smartphones into contactless donation points.
Since then, the business has evolved from a fundraising product into a platform connecting charities, fundraisers, donors and events, helping each part of the fundraising community work better together.
Today, nearly 800,000 user accounts have been created on givestar, helping raise more than $70 million from millions of donors for over 4,000 charities. The platform supports digital fundraising, event fundraising, supporter engagement and charity stewardship, helping charities acquire supporters, activate fundraisers and build longer-term relationships.
With 76% of users under 35, givestar is also connecting charities with the next generation of donors and fundraisers.
As the official fundraising platform for event partners including RunThrough, Tough Mudder UK, Spartan UK, Ultra Events and Ultra X, givestar is increasingly embedded where fundraising begins. These partnerships span hundreds of events, helping charities reach and recruit new fundraisers at the moment they sign up to take part.
This creates a growing network effect: events bring new fundraisers into the givestar community, fundraisers bring donors, and charities gain new supporters they can engage and build longer term relationships with. Rather than ending when a single event or campaign finishes, givestar keeps people connected to the causes, charities and fundraisers they care about.
“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 Tom Montague, co-founder.
“But we quickly realised the opportunity was much bigger. Fundraising is still fragmented across events, fundraisers, donors and charities. We’re building the technology layer that connects those worlds, creating a community that makes giving and fundraising more engaging and ultimately powers modern fundraising. This investment gives us the firepower to take that ambition much further, particularly in the US.”
givestar has already established significant US distribution, with partnerships across more than 70 events, including Bay to Breakers, the Las Vegas Marathon and the Portland Marathon.
Earlier this year, the company was appointed Official U.S. Fundraising Partner to Spartan and Tough Mudder, bringing its fundraising technology to hundreds of thousands of participants annually. The new funding will support further expansion of the company’s presence, partnerships and team across the country.
Hugo Lough, investor at Mercia Ventures, said: “Fundraising behaviour has changed significantly over the past decade, but much of the technology supporting charities has struggled to keep pace.
“What stood out to us about givestar was not only the technology the team has built, but the network they are creating around it. By partnering with some of the biggest participation events in the UK and establishing an early foothold across more than 70 events in the US, they are embedding fundraising into the places where it naturally begins.”