GoFundMe acquires CrowdRise to go deeper into the charitable giving space

GoFundMe on Tuesday announced the acquisition of CrowdRise, which will see the social fundraising platform extend to charities and nonprofits. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but CrowdRise will remain fully operational and act like it normally has, just with a new parent company.

“GoFundMe aims to be the giving layer of the Internet. By joining forces with CrowdRise, we can offer both people and organizations the right fundraising strategy for any sort of cause they care passionately about,” stated GoFundMe’s chief executive Rob Solomon.

CrowdRise was founded seven years ago by actor and activist Edward Norton, producer Shauna Robertson, and Robert and Jeffrey Wolfe. It now has more than 1 million members and 20,000 charities on its service, with more than $500 million raised to date for nonprofits. Norton once shared that he felt the traditional, real-life ways of raising money for nonprofits was “faulty” and that existing tools just weren’t catering to charitable giving. CrowdRise sought to be more accommodating, but it wasn’t without some criticism.

One way to view this consolidation is that GoFundMe is moving away from just being a peer-to-peer fundraising platform to now also include charities and larger campaigns. It would seem that GoFundMe wants to tackle all manner of social giving, be it helping someone through a difficult time or supporting bigger causes that affect a wider group of people.

This is the first large acquisition made by GoFundMe. Prior to its acquisition, CrowdRise had raised more than $24 million in venture funding from investors like Union Square Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Lightbank, CAA Ventures, and United Talent Agency.