KEY INSIGHTS:
- The company raised $8MM Series A around this time last year to expand operations.
- Returning investors include Panoramic Ventures, Goldman Sachs Asset Management Fund, SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund and others.
- Resilia will add more vertical payments solutions for nonprofit customers
Today, grants management and capacity-building software platform Resilia announced its latest round of funding to the tune of $35 million dollars. Last year, the company picked up $8MM in Series A funding, going on to stretch its 28-person headcount to well over 100 employees operating in New Orleans, New York City and Mexico City.
With more than four times as much cash now added to its ledger, the company will focus on the ongoing growth of its team, expansion into Canada and scaling its software adoption across nonprofits and the foundations that fund them. It will also be adding a payments component to streamline the technical suite of services it offers to its over 15,000 nonprofit and foundation customers who often find themselves toggling between multiple platforms to manage fundraising and reporting requirements.
“Our goal at Resilia has always been to provide nonprofits with access — something our team has worked tirelessly to do,” Sevetri M. Wilson, founder and CEO at Resilia, said in a company press release.
“This latest investment gets us closer to realizing our vision of democratizing philanthropy by reallocating power over its decision-making and resources as well as providing more seats at the table.”
The round was co-led by Panoramic Ventures and Framework Venture Partners. Returning investors include Mucker Capital, Callais Capital, Cultivation Capital, Engage Ventures, SoftBank Group’s SB Opportunity Fund, Kimble Ventures, The Jump Fund and Fearless Fund. New investors include Goldman Sachs Asset Management Fund, Chloe Capital, Gaingels, Mana Ventures and others.
Profit in Nonprofit Software
Charitable funding, nonprofit technical support and reporting management have all been boosted by technological innovation in recent years. Funders and grantees are leveraging tools like Resilia to create more transparent processes and develop feedback loops for greater efficiency and overall measurement of how each dollar creates a positive impact for the service-providing organization and society at large.
In its recent funding round, Resilia proves the market for “tech for good” Saas services that few startups are claiming space in. Others have made strides, including Goodr, which raised its Series A at $8MM this summer.
Wilson, who launched Resilia in 2017 under its former name, ExemptMe Now, told The Plug that while the business was originally designed to serve the nonprofit sector, they quickly realized there was an opportunity to conduct business with enterprises across private and public sectors. In turn, those clients bring new customers.
Enterprise clients like the Silicon Valley Foundation, The Boston Foundation, Goldman Sachs’s One Million Black Women Initiative and the State of Michigan, among others, bring their roster of grantees onto the Resilia platform, further expanding the platform’s population of organizations by adding their performance data into its ever-growing ecosystem.
From A to B
“We ask ourselves, ‘How do we deliver technical assistance and increase capacity, training, and knowledge to those learning as they are building their organizations?’ There wasn’t a free tier [of the platform] until last year amid COVID,” Wilson said, recalling her former days as a nonprofit consultant and leveraging that experience to productize capacity support through Resilia.
Now armed with additional funding, and a membership tier that keeps organizations plugged into the Resilia network even if a funder ceases funding, organizations won’t lose access to the platform.
As a double-sided marketplace serving two customers, Resilia can further its quest to be somewhat of a Match.com between funders and organizations sharing similar missions. Amore efficient vetting process can be of help considering the record funding losses nonprofit organizations faced over the last few years during the pandemic.
“The nonprofit sector has been historically underserved by technological innovations, but Resilia has created necessary, scalable solutions to empower organizations to increase capacity, execute on their own missions and propel teams to do more of what they do best,” said Ajay Gopal, Partner at FRAMEWORK Venture Partners, in the release.
