Twin Cities political tech startup Civic Eagle announced this week that it has closed on a $1.3 million round of seed funding to help the company grow ahead of its program launch.
Founded in 2015, Civic Eagle aims to use technology to improve transparency in public policy and legislative affairs. Originally, the company was creating a mobile app to help people understand politics.
But in 2018, Civic Eagle pivoted and began creating Enview, a legislative tracker and policy management tool that enables its users to search for state legislation across the country and to manage communication with their teams and stakeholders.
Civic Eagle’s seed round was led by Chicago-based venture capital firm M25 Ventures. The following firms and individuals also participated: The Syndicate Fund, Incite Ventures, ffVC, PurposeBuilt Ventures, and DigitalOcean founders Moisey and Ben Uretsky.
The company said the funding will be used to extend the development of Enview, adding artificial intelligence and natural language processing. Civic Eagle also hopes to grow its team.
“Over the last two years, we’ve been maniacally focused on building a valuable product that our customers love, and building a company that attracts the most talented and passionate employees,” CEO Damola Ogundipe said in a release. “We’ve been able to accomplish both, and I’m excited about the investors that have joined us to supercharge our growth."
The company has now raised $2.1 million to date.
In October, Civic Eagle was awarded $200,000 as one of three winners of MEDA’s Million Dollar Challenge. Last year the company also participated in the Techstars Anywhere cohort. Civic Eagle has also received support from accelerators and startup programs like The Farm/Boomtown, Higher Ground Labs and Camelback Ventures. It has also received investment from Arland Hamilton’s Backstage Capital firm.
Civic Eagle’s leadership team, which includes former DEED Commissioner Shawntera Hardy, is comprised of first-time founders of color, two women and a Nigerian-born immigrant. In a post on Medium, Ogundipe spoke about the challenges the team faced while raising VC funding.
“Most people on the outside of the four digital walls of our company didn’t expect us to get this far,” he said. “And to be honest, I understand their previous pessimism.”
Since pivoting in 2018, Civic Eagle has gained notable customers like Comcast, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Fair Fight.
