Austin Startup: VolunteerSpot Raises $1.5 Million From Nebraska New York & More

Whether you’re in charge of volunteers at a school’s PTA, your local church, civic organization or even the boy scouts, organizing volunteers can quickly turn into a big mess. Everyone typically means well when you first call out for volunteers and you end up with more than you need. Then, when it gets to be crunch time, people are too busy with other things or forget what their volunteer job was.  This can lead to a chaotic mess for any volunteer coordinator or event organizer. Until recently, even the most organized of volunteer coordinators often pulled off a great event with a gigantic headache.

Karen Bantuveris, the founder and CEO of VolunteerSpot said enough was enough and took this problem into her own hands. She solved it by creating an online platform to manage volunteers. The service has taken off with over 1.5 million volunteer users already using the free platform. What’s even better is the fact that there’s been no real marketing. The startup has survived off word-of-mouth advertising and some social media.

Last week VolunteerSpot announced that they’ve raised $1.5 million dollars in a round of funding that they plan to use to bolster their marketing efforts.


The round was led by FF Venture Capital out of New York.  The Central Texas Angel Network, the Baylor Angel Network and Angel List also participated in the round. But those aren’t the only angels Bantuveris was able to woo.

The Nebraska Angels ponied up $450,000 in the round. 14 of the Nebraska Angels contributed $25,000 or more towards that $450,000. Nebraska Angels Vice President Steve Clinch told SiliconPrairieNews that he liked Bentuveris from the minute he picked her up from the airport because of her “go-getter” spirit.

“We like to look at scalability. Does it have that?” Clinch said. “VolunteerSpot, from my investment standpoint — and I think I speak for a lot of other angel investors — does.”

Bart Dillashaw, President of the Nebraska Angels told SPN “The Nebraska Angels are excited about the investment in VolunteerSpot. VolunteerSpot provides a fantastic service to an attractive demographic, and we were incredibly encouraged by the strong loyalty and support of their users.”

“Until this point, we’ve grown almost entirely by word of mouth,” said Bantuveris told the Austin Statesman. “Now, with formal marketing money, we’ll be able to reach a wider group of power moms, teachers and community coordinators who drive the lion’s share of volunteer activities in this country.”

VolunteerSpot is one of the most scalable startups we’ve seen in quite sometime. Every kind of organization from gymnastics clubs to habitat for humanity can, and do use VolunteerSpot, and of course there are volunteer organizations in every town, city and state in the U.S.

Linkage:

Check out Volunteerspot here

Source: SiliconPrairieNews, Austin Statesman

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