VolunteerSpot Inks $1.5m Funding Led by ff Venture Capital

VolunteerSpot has secured an investment of $1.5 million. The funding was led by ff Venture Capital of New York, with participation from members of the Central TX Angel Network, Nebraska Angel Network, Angel List and Baylor Angel Network. Launched in 2009, VolunteerSpot provides online volunteer tools designed to help busy moms, teachers and nonprofit organisers easily mobilize and coordinate volunteers in their communities.

PRESS RELEASE

VolunteerSpot, online volunteer tools designed to help busy moms, teachers and nonprofit leaders easily mobilize and coordinate volunteers in their communities, today announced that it has secured an investment of $1.5M. Led by ff Venture Capital of New York, with participation from members of the Central TX Angel Network, Nebraska Angel Network, Angel List and Baylor Angel Network, VolunteerSpot expects to double its user base during this year’s back-to-school season.
VolunteerSpot provides a powerful coordination tool and cause-marketing platform that makes it easy for anyone to organize volunteer-led activities for schools, teams, faith groups, and nonprofits. Replacing a frustrating and antiquated communication process of “reply-all” email chains, clipboard signup sheets and spreadsheet juggling – VolunteerSpot has quickly spread from mom-to-mom and group-to-group, to more than 1.5 million users nationwide. With this new financing, VolunteerSpot will advance its product capabilities and extend its reach to more communities across the country – targeting America’s 70 million volunteers, moms and teachers.
“VolunteerSpot makes giving of your time, talent and money easy for our legion of power moms, teachers and community coordinators who drive the lion share of volunteer activities in this country,” said VolunteerSpot CEO, Karen Bantuveris. “As a result of each successfully coordinated event or group, and the volunteers who benefit firsthand from the efficiency and ease of using our online tools, we are seeing VolunteerSpot grow at a break-neck clip and expect to double our user base during this year’s back-to-school season.”
“VolunteerSpot has tapped into a highly desirable demographic and created an accessible solution to a long-time vexing problem,” said John Frankel of ff Venture Capital. “ff Venture Capital appreciates VolunteerSpot’s unique approach to both the mom-focused and cause-marketing markets and sees huge potential in their business.”
Last month, VolunteerSpot powered Keller William’s Reality National RED Day of Service with local volunteering initiatives that involved more than 30,000 associates nationwide. VolunteerSpot was recently named by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Top 10 Time-Saving Apps and Websites for Moms” and received the Cool Mom Picks Editors Tech Best of 2011 “Coolest Websites Award.”
VolunteerSpot’s easy online sign-up sheets and scheduler saves time, streamlines communication and makes it simple for more people to get involved. For parent groups, teams, teachers, faith groups and small nonprofits, VolunteerSpot is often the primary and exclusive volunteer coordination tool. For large nonprofits, VolunteerSpot powers the ground-level teams, corporate captains and board members working on key volunteering initiatives and fundraising events.
About VolunteerSpot
Launched in 2009, VolunteerSpot simplifies the volunteer experience with free online coordination tools that empower a legion of busy community leaders, parents and teachers to easily recruit and organize volunteers as well as fundraise. VolunteerSpot has grown from mom-to-mom, group-to-group and today, represents more than 4 million volunteer hours served nationwide. VolunteerSpot’s partners include Parenting Magazine, the National HandsOn Network, Girls on the Run, WATCH D.O.G.S., and Community Health Charities. Based in Austin, Texas, VolunteerSpot is privately held and is currently funded by ffVC, and members of the Central TX Angel Network, Nebraska Angel Network, Angel List and Baylor Angel Network.

About ffVC
ff Venture Capital invests in startups that can be the low-cost, disruptive player in their industry and can grow to over $100m in revenue. We are one of the oldest early-stage investors in New York, with over 150 investments in over 55 companies. We are institutional-quality investor in the angel space. We have a dozen employees focused on increasing the value of our portfolio, through a range of levers including strategy consulting, mentor network, recruiting, discounts with preferred service providers, and accounting services. Among our most successful seed investments that have reached maturity are Cornerstone OnDemand (which raised $137m in a March 2011 IPO, ticker CSOD) and Quigo Technologies (sold to AOL for a reported $340m in 2007).