After eight years giving advice to entrepreneurs, Atlanta Tech Village Vice President Karen Houghton is taking a turn in the founder’s seat.
Houghton this month launched Infinite Giving, a new financial technology startup that helps nonprofits passively invest their money to continuously grow their reserves. She raised $500,000 from Atlanta investors to get the startup off the ground and tapped serial entrepreneur and Georgia Tech graduate Seth Radman as chief technology officer and co-founder.
But her latest venture isn’t taking her far. She moved one floor up from her former Village office.
"It’s still the best place to build a startup,” Houghton said.
The startup’s launch shows the gears of Atlanta's innovation ecosystem at work. The Atlanta Tech Village, one of the largest tech incubators in the U.S., bred Infinite Giving, which launched with local co-founders and mostly local capital.
Houghton, who started as a Village employee and became a venture partner with Atlanta Ventures, hopes her startup comes “full circle,” eventually graduating from the Village. The startup builds on the city’s legacy as a leader in fintech and its new reputation as an East Coast tech hub.
Instead of hiring another vice president, Atlanta Tech Village employees received raises, and Houghton’s job will be dispersed among the team.
The idea for Infinite Giving comes from Houghton’s nonprofit background. She spent six years working with Roswell-based Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee, which worked to ethically source coffee from Rwandan farms. But the seemingly endless fundraising caused her to feel burned out, which is when she entered the tech ecosystem.
Still, her love for nonprofit work never left. She created Infinite Giving to help organizations raise money to complete their missions in a passive way, freeing their employees to focus on helping others.
The software platform automates an investment strategy for nonprofits, so they don’t have to spend money on an investment advisor but can still let their money grow.
Houghton said many nonprofit executives are mission-based people, so they may not have the financial foresight to try this type of investing, especially if they’re intimidated by complicated regulations or processes. Infinite Giving automates all those features.
"We’re simplifying something that feels really complicated,” Houghton said.
Houghton is currently doing customer discovery and plans to launch beta testing of the platform by the end of the year. By mid-May, Houghton expects Infinite Giving to have three full-time engineers, who will develop the platform.
The technology component is a challenge for Houghton, who specializes in the business side. That's why Radman, who's music tech startup, Crescendo, was acquired by Ultimate Guitar, will lead development. He also cofounded Upbeat Music App, a video conferencing platform for musicians that Atlanta Inno named a 2021 Startup to Watch.
The 12 investors supporting the startup’s $500,000 pre-seed round include Atlanta Tech Village founder and serial entrepreneur David Cummings, SalesLoft CEO Kyle Porter and Atlanta Tech Village President David Lightburn.
Raising that first round took only six weeks instead of the typical six months, Houghton said. But she’s spent eight years building relationships with these local investors, and now they’re ready to take a chance on her idea.
“We believe in her, the business, and the mission to leverage modern, financial technology to grow the world's giving,” Cummings said in a statement.
