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Classy Gets $18 Million In Class B Funding

Cloud-based fundraising platform Classy announced $18 million in Series B venture capital funding. The San Diego, Calif.-based company also announced the appointment of its first chief technology officer (CTO) and two additions to its advisory board.

Series B funding was led by Mithril Capital Management, a technology growth capital firm founded by Ajay Royan and Peter Thiel, with investors Salesforce Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Venture51, Galileo Partners and Rethink Impact also contributing. Seed and Series A funding were all from angel investors.

About $2 million of the $18 million growth round has been reserved for “certain strategic investors.” The company currently has about 80 staff and funding will triple the engineering team and “accelerate its product road map to meeting growing demand,” according to a press release announcing the milestone.

Michael Young, former CTO at Redfin and Plumtree will be Classy’s first CTO. Suzanne DeBianca, president and co-founder of the Salesforce Foundation, and Scott Harrison, CEO and founder of charity:water, joined the organization’s advisory board, which also includes Pencils of Promise founder Adam Braun and Alex Bard, CEO of CampaignMonitor.

Classy was founded nine years ago and now works with more than 1,500 nonprofits and social enterprises around the world, including Oxfam, National Geographic, Heifer International and Team Rubicon. Business is on pace to grow more than three times this year, with 77 percent of new customers in the second quarter being from outside California, according to the company.

“Generational and technological shifts are changing the way social impact organizations attract and engage with supporters faster than ever,” Scot Chisholm, CEO and co-founder of Classy, said in a statement announcing the funding. “Eighty million Millennials will make up more than 50 percent of the workforce in less than five years and their overwhelming preference is to engage online and through mobile,” he said. “Classy enables social impact organizations to make that technology transition, tap into this tremendous opportunity and alleviate a lot of their financial and operational burdens so they can concentrate on what’s most important – solving the world’s social problems.”