By: Cyril Bertrand & Manon Gazzotti
The people who run nonprofits deserve best-in-class software more than anyone else, and AssoConnect is here to help. We’re thrilled to lead their €7 million Series A, along with historical investor Isai!
What they do
AssoConnect is the toolkit of nonprofits: an all-in-one platform that allows teams and volunteers to create a website, manage payroll, accounting, CRM and of course donations.
As such, it is sometimes dubbed the ERP for nonprofits, which sounds right but doesn’t give justice to its radical simplicity: AssoConnect was built for the non-experts, those averse to digital, the everyday people of the nonprofit world. Your local karate club, alumni associations, charities, cultural groups and national federations of all kinds.
Making a profit with nonprofits
We know what you’re thinking. Nonprofit and charity aren’t the first things that come to an investor’s mind, let alone a VC. But take a closer look with us:
- Market depth: you’ll find 1.5 million of them just in France, 900k of which have a budget to manage. That’s a pretty large crowd.
- Volume & flow: nonprofits transact for around €20 billion each year. Most of it is done with paper checks (!) and monitored by hand on spreadsheets.
There’s room for all sorts of improvements in day-to-day operations. The kind of improvements that can make admin work much easier for team and let them focus on what they do best: helping, serving, or raising funds. In other words, have impact.
But the nonprofit needs to be addressed correctly to do so, and it hasn’t been the case until now. This is why with adapted functionalities, a good UX and the right pricing policy, AssoConnect has become a preferred partner in just a few years.
Born for the USA
We see a strong potential in the USA. We’re not the only one, considering the pool of US-based business angels that are joining us on this deal. They are led by Thibaud Elzière, a man who’s as strong on product* as he is on vision. We’re very excited about this.
American nonprofits have all they need for fundraising, but are underserved in their day-to-day operations. We believe that AssoConnect can provide them game-changing value on the CRM — Bookkeeping — Website management trilogy. And become relevant in the same way that Odoo has become relevant for so many american SMEs these past couple of years.
There is a local leader of course — a historical one. Blackbaud and its $4 billion market cap have been around for a while (and it shows). But something tells us AssoConnect will soon be ready for the challenge.
True story
As treasurer of a nonprofit, Cyril has been using AssoConnect for a while — long before this deal was even an idea (at least on our side). And the first time Arnaud offered to meet us, we thought it was to get our feedback on the service. A customer success operation of some sort. How naïve of us!
What we love about Arnaud
Two (good) words about Arnaud:
He’s a founder, a product guy and genuine techhead all at once. The first lines of code in AssoConnect are his, and he still oversees development. We’re very comfortable with that. He’s a founder that rocks the codes, just like we love them.
More importantly, he built a business with a purpose. AssoConnect helps nonprofits do what they do best, which is to have impact. The team is sincere, dedicated. It shows in all the little things: the interactions with clients, the tone of voice, the wage policy, and even the way product is built. We love the mindset.
