Benevity, a specialist in corporate purpose cloud software, has secured an investment from global software investor Hg. Hg’s investment is expected to further accelerate and scale Benevity’s pioneering leadership in this category.
Hg will lead the investment, which will be made from the Hg Saturn 2 Fund, in partnership with Benevity’s current investors, General Atlantic and JMI Equity, who will remain significant investors in the business, alongside the Benevity management team.
This investment comes at a time when ESG (Environment, Social, Governance), corporate purpose and stakeholder capitalism are taking root in companies of all sizes across the globe and as employee, consumer and public expectations grow for business to help solve the complex issues facing society. Benevity’s all-in-one, global platform enables purpose-driven brands to engage these stakeholders in supporting the causes and issues they care about through a database of nearly 2 million vetted nonprofit organisations worldwide.
The Benevity platform has driven more than 34 million hours in volunteer time and talent, 275,000 positive actions, over one million grants and more than USD6 billion in donations to date. Benevity’s 650 clients and their 19 million employees support issues ranging from food insecurity, human rights, diversity and inclusion, racial equity, mental health — and everything in between. Around half of the businesses named on the 2021 Forbes Just 100 Ranking – which recognises “America’s Most JUST Companies” – use Benevity to power their corporate purpose programs.
Benevity has helped transform the nonprofit sector from manual processing, technological lag and fragmentation to automation, aggregation and efficiency. With 90 per cent of all donation funds being sent electronically to nonprofits, Benevity boasts the highest payment success rate in the industry, ensuring that more dollars reach those in need, more accurately and reliably than any other software provider.
“For the last decade, Benevity has been transforming the way businesses engage stakeholders in social impact initiatives, evolving them from passively transactional investments to empowered, personalised experiences,” says Bryan de Lottinville, Benevity Founder and CEO. “By embracing a grassroots approach to goodness — that is supported by scalable software — companies create more meaningful purpose-driven cultures and consumer-facing brands, helping them truly do well by doing good. We are thrilled to have Hg on board, whose global profile and expertise in software and SaaS will enable us to scale our reach to even more companies across a spectrum of industries, sizes and geographies, helping more people create a sense of connection to purpose and impact than ever before.”
Nic Humphries, Senior Partner and Head of the Hg Saturn team, says: “It is truly exciting to partner with an organisation that enables such positive impact to society, and we passionately believe in what Bryan, Kelly and their team are creating. Benevity is already a robust, high-growth business with a trusted platform for some of the world’s largest global brands looking to boost their purpose-driven activities. We look forward to working with the team to become even more pervasive and impactful.”
The Saturn team’s Justin Von Simson, Managing Partner, Thorsten Toepfer, Partner and Gero Wittemann, Partner and co-lead of Hg’s New York team, adds: “Benevity has created a system of giving, volunteering and mission engagement that is more impactful and efficient for the business world, driving up employee participation rates, increasing employee engagement and retention, and resulting in higher impact to those in society that need it most. It’s great to be backing another business based in North America and we look forward to using our experience in scaling software champions, to reinforce their mission across the globe.”
Alex Crisses, Managing Director at General Atlantic, adds: “We are strong believers in Benevity’s mission to empower enterprises and employees alike to support the causes they care about. Over the three years of our partnership with Benevity, the company has demonstrated the resonance of its platform as it has added premier clients – becoming the backbone for their corporate giving and employee engagement programs – and enabled giving on a global scale. We are proud to welcome a trusted partner in Hg in the company’s next phase of growth.”
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed and closing of the transaction is expected in January 2021.
