After years of attending charity events, rising Harvard junior Jake Silberg started looking for ways to give back. In middle school, Silberg had been diagnosed with lymphoma, and soon began touring as a motivational speaker, serving as a source of inspiration for the cancer community. Or, as the Star-Ledger describes him, “An amazing young man who has risen above an enormous obstacle.”
His experience led him to launch Valet.io, a fundraising platform that’s attracted the attention of Rough Draft Ventures, who announced Thursday they will be investing $5,000 in the startup.
Silberg is working alongside fellow Harvard junior Ben Donald and Columbia junior Ben Drucker—both of who also have experience in the event space. Last summer, Drucker ran IT for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation and Donald previously worked as an event DJ. The three, all originally from New Jersey, pooled together their contacts, and started reaching out to various nonprofits, political campaigns and schools.
Valet.io provides pledge drive and silent auction technology, enabling guests to give and bid right from their mobile device.
At a fundraiser for Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey who is now running for the U.S. Senate, Silberg says they gave guests the URL to pledge and set up a screen where they could see the total raised in real-time. In 60 seconds, Valet.io raised $5,000. At a recent gala for BronxWorks, a human service organization and settlement house, the startup helped them raise $85,000.
BronxWorks was striving to fix the pool at the community center. And so, on a large projection screen, Valet.io showed a swimmer. The closer guests got to the fundraising goal, the farther the swimmer moved across the screen.
“Guests can see exactly how much impact they’re having in the moment,” Silberg says, reporting the screen also highlights what people are tweeting on the side. “It creates that feel of seeing your name up on the screen during a sports game. That’s the advantage of this technology. Now we can get people inspired in the moment to really jump in right away and bring that number higher.”
In terms of political fundraisers, Silberg notes individuals typically pay before they arrive or when they show up. “But the moment they’re going to feel most connected to the campaign is when the candidate finishes speaking,” Silberg says. “So, we want to give people the chance to get involved right when they feel most inspired.”
Valet.io also helps with silent auctions by allowing customers to rent iPads or iPod Touches through their rental partner Flying Connected. The team will go in and set up iPad kiosks, thereby eliminating the need for the traditional pen and paper. What’s more, the technology is able to send out a text to guests when they’ve been outbid and allow them to up the ante right from their phone.
After all the money is raised, funds can be found waiting in the customer’s bank account the very next morning. Valet.io tracks pledges in real-time, allowing organizations to collect payments at the event via credit card or check. That means no more trying to decipher illegible handwriting, and no need to call the next day following up on a silent auction.
The process is as simple as Valet.io creating a website and custom pledge page for guests to fill out. Moving forward, Silberg says they will be able to auto-fill out donations based on the event’s guest list.
Although currently based in New York, the team will begin rolling out to Boston in the fall. Silberg acknowledges they still haven’t finalized their pricing model, but they expect to charge a fee for the first event they help with, and then a monthly licensing fee to organizations interested in continuously using the product.
Silberg was quick to thank Harvard Professor Paul Bottino, the founder and executive director of the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Bottino’s course on startup research and development gave Silberg and Donald the ability to work on Valet.io for credit last year, according to Silberg, which is what “made all [the] progress this summer possible.”
The college students behind Rough Draft were impressed by the team’s quick success.
“When they came and pitched to us, it was a really fleshed out idea,” says Rough Draft Co-Founder Zach Hamed. “We really want to accelerate that process. The feedback we’ve gotten from them on the initial events they’ve run, it’s been amazing.”
Silberg thanked Rough Draft, as well.
“Rough Draft’s help means we can run a business that will be successful by raising money for important causes,” Silberg says. “And that’s something that means a lot to us.”
