Resilia Raises $8 million in Series A round, Expands Hiring Across R&D, Sales, and Operations

As the recession looms, Resilia, announced today the close of its $8 million Series A round. 

Launched in New Orleans in 2016 by founder and serial entrepreneur Sevetri Wilson, the software as a service platform serves a two-sided market enabling grantors like cities, private foundations, and corporations to deploy capital quickly and efficiently while giving nonprofits expanded tools for compliance, management, training, and funding. 

This Series A was backed by Mucker Capital and Callais Capital Management with participation by Cultivation Capital. 

“Prior to our Series A close we opened an office in New York near Bryant Park as we sought to be close to our core enterprise customers on the east coast,” explained Wilson. Resilia’s current 2,800 customers using the platform include small-to-midsize nonprofits, large foundations, and national organizations like The United Way and Kellog. 

In 2018, Wilson raised $400,000 pre-seed and $2 million in seed capital from investors like Kevin Lin (formerly of Twitch) and Tim Millikin (partner at TPG Capital), Newark Venture Partners, New Orleans StartupFund and others. According to reporting, she was also one of the first African American women in New Orleans to raise such a hefty sum. Follow on investors include Next Wave Ventures, Engage Ventures, and The JumpFund.

The Current Crisis

With the current public health climate wreaking economic havoc on businesses, families, and the steadily increasing unemployment rate, Wilson and her team anticipate an increase in users taking advantage of Resilia’s platform as nonprofits and funders rush to meet the needs of businesses, charities, hospitals, and individuals. 

“There’s only one other time I can recall where my entire world changed overnight, and that was the day after Hurricane Katrina,” explained Wilson in an email. “Yet, one thing I remembered was the number of nonprofits and funds that were created because of it. We are seeing that to be true with the use of our platform. We’ve seen an increase of new nonprofits forming via our formation product and a rise in Enterprise customers who are standing up COVID-19 relief funds.”

Resilia is among a growing group of grant management software tools designed to simplify capital deployment and reporting between funders and grantees. Other platforms include Foundant, Elevato, and others. Resilia also provides incorporation services for new nonprofits.

“From our nonprofit side, being able to easily pull data and report wins and failures is more critical than ever,” said Wilson.

The new funding will be used to expand their 18 person team across their two offices. Since the coronavirus shut down both cities, the Resilia team has been working remotely, but still plans to make several hires throughout the year in sales, research and development, operations, and investment in the company’s core technology.

Sherrell Dorsey

She is the founder and CEO of The Plug—a distinctive, Black tech news and insights platform covering Black innovators in tech, venture capital, future of work policy, and more. Follow Sherrell on Twitter @Sherrell_Dorsey.