Tech firm Bonterra has added workplace giving to its suite of fundraising options with the acquisition of Deed, which has operations worldwide and offices in New York, San Francisco and Berlin, Germany. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Deed platform is described in the announcement as a people-first employer corporate social responsibility (CSR) experience, “to deliver a modern, intelligent employee engagement experience to raise the standards of corporate philanthropy.”
Deed was founded in Brooklyn, New York in 2016 by Deevee Kashi, Steve Liu, and Aske Ertmann as a consumer mobile app for volunteers. The workplace giving and volunteering platform launched its beta phase with Adidas in August 2018. In December 2020, Deed announced it had raised $2 million in seed investment and the launch of its formal enterprise business to support CSR initiatives.
The combined platform is intended to create greater employee participation through frictionless, modern engagement experiences, stronger employee sentiment and talent competitiveness by embedding impact into company culture, greater operational efficiency through AI-enabled automation and board-level impact visibility across engagement and grants in one connected framework.
“Employees do not want another clunky portal. They want to do good in seconds,” Scott Brighton, CEO of Austin, Texas-based Bonterra, said via a statement. “Deed has built the best employee experiences in the market, and they are moving fast on AI in ways the category has struggled to deliver. Together, we will raise expectations for what corporate philanthropy software should feel like.”
Also via the statement co-founder and CEO Kashi said, “Deed was built on a simple belief: user experience should never stand between people and doing good. We’ve seen firsthand how a modern, globally accessible platform can unlock participation at scale. As we join the Bonterra ecosystem, we will bring together Deed’s engagement layer with enterprise-grade grantmaking, powered by the most robust impact network — raising the standard for corporate philanthropy worldwide.”
Berenson & Company served as financial advisor to Bonterra, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LL acted as the legal advisor. Raymond James served as financial advisor to Deed, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe was the legal advisor.
The acquisition comes six months after Bonterra acquired digital fundraising and auction platform OneCause. A year earlier Bonterra acquired DonorDrive, a provider of peer-to-peer and digital fundraising solutions. It’s foundational products include EveryAction, Social Solutions, and CyberGrants. It is backed by private equity advisory firm Apax Partners.
