When EverTrue closed its $5.25 million Series A in March 2013, the focus was on growing the team. Since, the social donor management platform has expanded from 14 employees to 40, and proven the startup knows how to execute. With $8 million in Series B financing announced Wednesday, however, it's now time EverTrue takes its operations to the next level.
"We're at a point now where we know we can deliver a crystal clear return on our investment to our customers," said EverTrue Founder and CEO Brent Grinna (photographed below) in a phone interview with BostInno. "But we need to operationalize our ability to do that very well every single time."
Bain Capital Ventures led EverTrue's Series B, with participation from Silicon Valley Bank. The latest funding brings the company's total amount raised to $14.5 million, and will help EverTrue, according to Grinna, "be laser focused on customer success."
Since closing its Series A, also led by Bain Capital Ventures, EverTrue has hired Mark Greene, a former engineer at HubSpot, as its director of platform engineering; Brightcove Co-founder Elisabeth Bentel Carpenter as its chief operating officer; and Niall Hawkins, who served as the vice president of finance and administration of Where, before it was acquired by PayPal for $135 million, as its chief financial officer, among others.
"A big part of the Series A was surrounding ourselves with experienced operators," Grinna said.
And with those operators on board, the startup realized there was an opportunity to expand beyond its narrow focus on alumni relations. The team turned to social donor management instead, and is now helping more than 250 institutions better prospect, activate alumni and identify their middle-of-the-pyramid donors.
"In the last five years, as donor information has shifted out to LinkedIn, Twitter and other channels, there's been a huge disconnect between internal and external data," Grinna said.
Nonprofits and universities quickly rack up costs when they don't understand how they are connected to their constituents. Boston University can attest. Shared Scott Nichols, the school's senior vice president of development and alumni relations, in a statement:
EverTrue offers one of the most promising products I have ever seen. The early results for Boston University have exceeded our expectations so fully that we are now committed to making it available to everyone in our fundraising organization. … I am excited about what EverTrue is doing for BU, but even more excited for what this will mean for professional fundraising.
And Grinna would agree.
"As enthusiastic as BU is right now, there are higher ed institutions like BU that have never even heard of us," he said. "But word is spreading."
It's hard for word not to spread. Beyond raising an overall $14.5 million, EverTrue has gone through MassChallenge and Techstars Boston, making the startup an integral part of the local tech community.
"Being in Boston has been such a competitive advantage," Grinna, a Harvard Business School graduate, acknowledged. "The people here really understand higher education; they really understand nonprofits; they really understand philanthropy."
The continued support of Bain Capital Ventures helps serve as proof of that.
"We continue to be bullish on the opportunity to bring for-profit sales and marketing intelligence to the non-profit sector," said Mike Krupka, managing director of Bain Capital Ventures, in a statement.
And so does EverTrue.
Images via EverTrue
