NationBuilder provides a software platform that lets leaders (nonprofits, government entities, political organizations and businesses) grow and organize their communities and build lasting relationships with customers, supporters, and constituents. The platform combines websites, a people database and communication tools including email, text messaging and social media in one system. It was founded in November 2009 and launched in April 2011 and is based in Los Angeles, CA. According to a post by founder Jim Gillian, NationBuilder raised $8m in funding. The company intends to use the funds to continue to grow. NationBuilder is a SaaS platform that lets non-technical users create branded websites, blogs and integrated supporter databases with fundraising, volunteer outreach, event management, payment processing and mass messaging. The product includes social media integrations (Facebook and Twitter), a finances dashboard that tracks donors and fundraising progress, event ticketing, maps, calendars and hooks to payment processors like Authorize.net and PayFlow Pro. Pricing starts at $19 per month (email and text blasts extra) and the platform offers a two-week free trial. Since launch the startup has helped over 1,800 leaders organize more than 500 “nations” and 2 million supporters, with customers including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Newt Gingrich’s New Hampshire campaign. The company plans to ramp up marketing and hire organizers to contact local candidates and organizations. Financially, NationBuilder has just closed a venture financing that will fund those go-to-market efforts. NationBuilder is a platform for groups to keep in touch with community members, delegate tasks, and manage fundraising. It launched in April and closed a $500,000 seed funding round the following month led by Chris Hughes. The service has shown rapid growth: in September it had almost 200,000 unique visitors and 1.2 million page views, which rose to 400,000 uniques and 2.5 million page views the next month. The platform hosts about 300 groups with roughly 1 million supporters signed up, and groups have raised $3.3 million through the service so far. NationBuilder has been used by political campaigns and nonprofits as well as other groups such as the Beall Elementary PTA and a community around the documentary Stem Cell Revolutions. Having been limited to groups with fewer than 200,000 members, the company is now opening to larger organizations as it looks to expand beyond politics to "everyone building a community online," according to Gilliam.

Total raised

$15M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jun 2013