London-based tech firm Goodstack has secured £22 million in venture capital funding, positioning it to facilitate £2.4 billion in employee donations to good causes this year.
The company, whose platform is utilised by major corporations such as HSBC, LinkedIn, and design software firm Canva, has been quietly investing the capital raised from San Francisco-based General Catalyst and other investors to achieve its ambitious goal.
Founded in 2015 by university friends Henry Ludlam, 33, and Stefan Greer, 34, Goodstack was originally known as Percent. It initially enabled retailers to reward student purchases by directing a small percentage back to their chosen campus teams or clubs. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the duo identified an opportunity to revolutionise corporate philanthropy by simplifying the process for employees to donate to vetted charities, schools, and non-profits worldwide.
“We have 13 million in our database,” Ludlam said, emphasising that all organisations have been thoroughly verified. Goodstack generates revenue by providing companies with access to its platform, typically leaving employee donations free of charges except for transaction fees levied by card issuers. “As a general rule, we try to get the corporates to cover the cost,” he added.
Unlike well-known charitable platforms such as JustGiving, GoFundMe, and Crowdfunder—which take a percentage fee and encourage donors to leave optional tips—Goodstack’s model focuses on corporate partnerships to minimise costs for individual donors.
The platform has facilitated a surge in donations to charities including the Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, and Oxfam, as well as to disaster relief efforts in response to events like tropical cyclone Carina in the Philippines and recent floods in Spain. From processing $50,000 in donations in 2020, Goodstack handled $1 billion last year and is on track to manage $3 billion this year.
“There was a massive gap in the market for doing something like us,” Ludlam noted. “All the current players were very locally focused. No one had built the one layer of software that makes it as easy to give in America as it is in Vietnam, South Africa, or Fiji.”
Ludlam and Greer met during their first year at Manchester University, sharing a flat in Oak House, Fallowfield. The company now employs 60 people and the founders retain a “significant minority” shareholding, having raised a total of $33 million in venture capital. Nationwide Building Society was an early investor but has since divested its stake.
General Catalyst, which first invested in 2021, has a track record of backing high-growth tech firms, including Airbnb, Irish payments giant Stripe, and social messaging service Snap at early stages of their development.