BOULDER, Colo., April 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kickfurther, the first crowdfunded inventory funding platform, today announced a $5.9 million Seed Plus funding round led by Grand Oaks Capital, an investment firm founded by Paychex founder Tom Golisano. The round also included previous investors Tim Draper through Draper Associates and venture capitalist Bill Tai, the first investor in Zoom and seed in Wish, Canva, and Treasure Data amongst others.
The round will accelerate investment in the technology and marketing needed to support their over 100% YoY growth and the rapidly expanding need for small business funding solutions.
In addition to the funding round, Kickfurther announced that John Donovan, co-founder and former Lending Club COO as well as an investor and advisor to Kickfurther, joined the company as Chief Strategy Officer.
“Working closely with Tom and John provides us incredible insight into their rich expertise in eCommerce and entrepreneurial excellence,” said Sean De Clercq, Kickfurther CEO, “This funding round will help accelerate our expansion and allow us to invest more into resources that will help small business entrepreneurs grow.”
Kickfurther’s growth builds off booming eCommerce sales, which grew an estimated 44% in 2020, as well as beginning to capture business in the $3 trillion factoring services marketspace. Despite market growth and the introduction of marketplace offerings from major retailers like Walmart to compete with Amazon, small and medium-size product entrepreneurs remain challenged in finding capital to fund their growth at competitive rates.
“I’m really excited to lead this latest funding round for Kickfurther. This round will accelerate Kickfurther’s already tremendous growth and help them increase the breadth and scope of support they provide to entrepreneurs,” said Golisano.
Tai said, "Many Kickfurther campaigns are 'sold out' immediately because they bring fans of a company's products and brand to the table - to support working capital needs for those products. This use case is exploding now at a time when consumers are looking to earn higher returns on their cash just as banks are becoming ineffective at serving this segment."
It’s been a busy year for Kickfurther. As players in the alternative and traditional small business lenders slowed lending and withdrew customers’ lines of credit, Kickfurther doubled its funding, including “making” their largest single funding deal ever — over $1,000,000 — while multiplying the customers they served in the quickly growing eCommerce space. Additionally, the company tripled staff over the past two years while opening a second office in Buffalo, New York.
“Closing this funding round is an exciting milestone for us as a company and also validates the needs owners of growing businesses face and the lack of quick, affordable and scalable solutions available to them,” said De Clercq.
About Kickfurther
Kickfurther is the world’s first crowdfunded inventory funding platform that has provided over $70 million in working capital to small and medium sized product businesses in the US. They are backed by the investors behind Robinhood, Tesla, Twitter, DocuSign, Canva and more.
For More information:
Paul Wilke
Upright Position Communications on behalf of Kickfurther
Kickfurther@uprightcomms.com
+1-415-215-8750