Benevity, a global leader in corporate social responsibility and one of the largest startups in the Prairies, has raised $40 million in a Series C round of funding.
The new capital comes from previous investors JMI Equity and General Atlantic. JMI has invested in Benevity since its Series A, when the Baltimore-based growth equity firm put forward the entire $38 million round. General Atlantic, a New-York-based growth equity firm, first invested in Benevity in January 2018 with an undisclosed nine-figure amount, buying a majority stake from early investors, according to The Globe and Mail.
“We’re building an entirely new category and ecosystem for purpose-driven businesses.”
According to The Globe the latest funding round puts the companies value close to $400 million USD. The Globe also noted that Benevity generates around $100 million in annual revenue, which would make it one of Canada’s largest early-stage tech companies.
The $40 million will be used to help scale the Calgary-based company’s “corporate goodness” platform, which helps companies engage with their employees in giving and volunteering initiatives.
Benevity was founded in 2008 by current CEO Bryan de Lottinville as a platform that enables companies to engage their employees and customers around social responsibility and community investment, hoping to create better business and social impacts. Since its early days, Benevity has grown to more than 600 employees and built out a customer base of more than 600 clients spanning large, global enterprises like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Google, and Honda.
The Prairies startup has made a lot of moves over the past year. Outside of its early 2018 funding from General Atlantic, Benevity also brought in new executive hires with CFO Kelly Schmitt and Eve Stacey as president. Benevity also acquired two companies. In February, the company acquired UK-based TrustCSR, a corporate social responsibility consultancy that helped Benevity increase its reach into international markets, and less than a month later Benevity announced the acquisition of US-based Versaic, a grants, donation, and sponsorship management solution provider to more than 100 of the world’s largest companies. Benevity also signed on 50 new large enterprises to its client base in the first half of 2019.
“With so many of our institutions at an impasse over how to address a multitude of global crises and societal challenges, progressive companies are stepping in to fill the void, and we are passionately helping them do that,” said Lottinville. “Benevity isn’t just building software, we’re building an entirely new category and ecosystem for purpose-driven businesses.”
Lottinville added that the latest investment will help Benevity scale into a sizeable company that can meet the growing needs of the market. Benevity will also use the funding to grow its team over the next year, with plans to hire 200 employees across technology, sales, client success, and operational roles.
“As corporate purpose, CSR [corporate social responsibility] and employee engagement increasingly become business imperatives, more and more companies are seeking enterprise-grade solutions that are inclusive, personalized, easy-to-deploy across their global teams and flexible enough to scale with their evolving requirements,” said Alex Crisses, managing director in General Atlantic’s technology sector. “We believe Benevity is well positioned to continue leading the market in this area, and we are a proud partner in this endeavour.”
Image source Benevity via Twitter