Moonshots Capital Joins Groundswell’s $15M Seed Round to Reinvent Charitable Giving
This holiday season, we at Moonshots Capital are grateful for an opportunity to invest in giving back. Groundswell, the newest addition to our Fund II portfolio, promises to transform corporate philanthropy and create a future in which every solution is funded and every problem is solved.
This may sound like a bold objective, but CEO Jake Wood is no stranger to making big ideas happen. After completing his service in the Marine Corps in 2010, he founded and led Team Rubicon, an international NGO that mobilizes U.S. military veterans to help with disaster relief across the globe. Kelly and Craig have known Jake for several years, having recruited him to speak to one of their groups on the topic of leadership. We are very familiar with his resolve, leadership, and deep commitment to bettering the world and we have no doubt that Groundswell will succeed in reinventing charitable giving as we know it.
Until now, corporate philanthropy has been removed from the hands of employees: company leadership chose causes independently, with no way of understanding and supporting the values of people who work for them. Groundswell’s innovative platform now allows companies to provide a donor-advised fund (effectively a personal foundation) to each employee. Companies can gift money to these funds, and employees have agency over giving it away to a charity of their choice through a mechanism that reduces the tax burden for both parties. With a rising number of employees drawn to value-driven workplaces, Groundswell will give companies a competitive edge by making these funds part of a standard corporate benefits package. As Jake puts it, Groundswell will democratize charitable giving, empowering everyone to “give like Gates, get taxed like Buffett, and get recognized like Rockefeller.”
Over the last 11 years, Jake’s Team Rubicon has recruited over 150,000 volunteers and conducted nearly 1,000 operations, proving his entrepreneurial mettle and ability to manage large-scale operations that serve the common good. Jake’s co-founder, Adam Miller, is a long-time friend of Kelly’s and a fellow graduate of UCLA Anderson MBA program. Adam’s previous company, Cornerstone (which he founded and grew through IPO and beyond), helps businesses create dynamic workplaces where success is achieved through individual growth. His expert understanding of companies’ support of employees’ development is an invaluable resource for facilitating Groundswell’s swift adoption across a variety of industries. The third founder is Joe Marchese, a serial entrepreneur, very savvy investor and chairman at Human Ventures. Together, Jake, Adam, and Joe aim to create an entire category — Philanthropy-as-a-Service — that reinvents corporate philanthropy, total compensation, and individual giving.
Groundswell’s $15 million seed round is led by GV (previously Google Ventures), and we are proud to join them alongside Human Ventures, Felicis Ventures, and Core Innovation Capital.
Knowing that Jake, Adam and Joe are such experienced leaders, it is unsurprising that Groundswell is already making rapid headway towards launching their innovative giving platform. Individual philanthropists and companies looking to introduce employee benefits that make a difference can sign up for early access to the app poised for release in 2022 at www.groundswell.io.
Moonshots Capital is a veteran-founded venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups with extraordinary leaders.
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