Gated offers an email-management tool that moves messages from unknown senders into a separate Gmail folder and requires those senders to donate to a recipient-chosen nonprofit to reach the inbox. The user sets a minimum price (starting at $2 per email) and Gated sends 70% of each payment to the vetted nonprofit while retaining the remainder; the software is free to users. The company says it never reads message contents and builds allowed-sender lists from metadata about prior communications. Gated is currently Gmail-only and is undergoing reviews with Microsoft to expand to other platforms. The startup reports a waitlist of about 2,500 people prior to public launch and sees 40–60% reply rates on donated emails. The team is exploring micropayments to reduce payment fees and plans a future business-to-business product to let marketers budget a set number of outbound emails per month.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Mar 2022