A West Midlands company which has developed a unique charity fundraising platform has secured £1.25m in investment to help further enhance its technology and expand its client base.
Stourbridge-based GivePenny Technologies has secured investment from the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, Mercia’s EIS funds and private investors.
The GivePenny platform enables charities to create digital fundraising experiences for their supporters that can be linked to popular apps like Strava, Twitch, Fitbit, YouTube and Spotify. Unique features designed for charities, fundraisers and donors helps to increase user donations and engagement. .
GivePenny was founded in 2015 by Lee Clark after an illness prevented him from taking part in a 100-mile bike ride for charity. He realised none of the time spent or miles covered during his training counted towards the donations made by his friends. The platform allows users to share data and base donations on different metrics, such as the amount of miles covered, milestones achieved, or by adding songs to playlists.
GivePenny is used by the likes of Mind, Cancer Research UK and Help for Heroes and has raised over £3.5m in total for charities. The company’s figures show that fundraising pages that use the app integrations raise three times more than pages that did not use the features.
Lee Clark, CEO of GivePenny, said: “Engaging the public to encourage fundraising is key for charities and GivePenny makes it easy for them to achieve this. The pandemic accelerated the move toward digital fundraising experiences and increased the need for innovation. As big rises in the cost of living create greater need for charity services against a tougher fundraising landscape, GivePenny’s mission has never been more important. This investment will enable us to further enhance the platform and help more charities – big and small – to continue their valuable work.”
Kiran Mehta, Investment Manager at Mercia, said: “The growth in virtual fundraising events has created a gap in the market for a platform such as GivePenny. Lee and the team have created a strong product that sets itself apart from the competition in the way it integrates with other apps to increase engagement and donation size. The funding will help the team to establish GivePenny as a leader in the field.”
Mark Wilcockson, Senior Investment Manager at the British Business Bank, said:“The MEIF aims to provide financial support to small and medium businesses in the Midlands to support growth. GivePenny is a perfect example of how the MEIF supports innovative ideas with levelling up potential to contribute towards the region’s socio-economic growth.”
Tom Westley DL, Chair of the Black Country LEP, said: “The MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund is ideal for supporting companies like GivePenny Technologies that have real capacity for growth and an opportunity to position themselves as a market leader. The Black Country LEP’s role is to support businesses, like GivePenny, in expanding and developing so that we continue to see our local and regional economy grow.”
The Midlands Engine Investment Fund and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund projects are supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.