MatchGrant Turns One Year of Growth Into $3.6M In Grant Wins For Users
ATLANTA, October 28 (Hypepotamus) - At Hypepotamus, we often meet Southeast startups when their founders are still building a product and finding their first customers. A year later, the story gets interesting when we can see which of those founders have been able to bring on actual customers.
For Atlanta-based MatchGrant, the year milestone comes with an impressive number: $3.6 million in grants directly attributed to the platform, according to founder Luke Keller.
When we first covered MatchGrant last October the startup was bootstrapped and building tools to help nonprofits find grants that fit their missions. Today, it has outside investors, a growing team, and ambitions to become the “operating system” for organizations that rely on grants.
Building Beyond The Grant
As its name suggests, MatchGrant started by helping nonprofits identify relevant grant opportunities. But customer feedback pushed the team to think beyond just the discovery opportunity. Early users wanted a place to manage their grants, too. That includes a place to keep track of applications, deadlines, as well as help with funding research. MatchGrant is now expanding into what Keller calls “funding intelligence,” bringing grant research, discovery, and management into one platform, with calendar and CRM integrations.
Maija Ehlinger
Its customer base is expanding as well. Keller said MatchGrant added well over 100 users over the past year, finding opportunities beyond nonprofits with parent-teacher associations and organizations, as well as cities that rely on grants to fund their work.
The next product addition is a grant-writing assistant. Keller described the forthcoming feature as a “collaborative tool,” extending MatchGrant’s reach into the application process.
Tech Square Ventures is an Atlanta-based firm investing in enterprise (B2B) and marketplace technology companies.
Building A Wider Reach
Partnerships are becoming another part of MatchGrant’s growth strategy.
Keller said the company is beginning to work with channel partners that serve thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands, of nonprofits and schools around the world. Foundations are also seeing an opportunity to purchase access and provide it to their grantees, giving the organizations they already support another tool to pursue funding. Those relationships could help drastically expand MatchGrant’s reach as it prepares for Year Two in the market.
MatchGrant remained bootstrapped until June of this year, when it took on angel investment and capital through Kingdom Founders’ pitch competition.
The team now includes five full-time employees and three contractors, with plans to hire two more full-time employees over the next few months. Most of the team is based in Metro Atlanta.
For Keller, the strongest measure of progress remains the grants users are winning. A year ago, MatchGrant was still building the product. Today, those awards give the team a clearer picture of what it can help organizations accomplish.
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