CUDDLY, a mission-driven fundraising platform dedicated to helping animal welfare organizations worldwide, closed a $4 million Series A round. The round is being led by Lead Edge Capital, a growth-stage investment fund based in New York and Santa Barbara.
The new funding will accelerate the growth of CUDDLY’s platform for its sheltering partners. It will allow the company to add fundraising consultants to support the organizations they serve, increase marketing spend to fuel the growth of new donor acquisitions, and continue to improve the overall product experience.
“It’s an exciting time for us as we continue to grow and watch our mission gain traction,” stated John Hussey, CEO of CUDDLY. “We are very thoughtful about who we partner with and couldn’t be more thrilled to team with Lead Edge Capital to bring our work to more animal-welfare nonprofits worldwide.”
Hussey continued: “As a double impact bottom line business, our goal is to help our sheltering partners improve their fundraising efforts through community, innovation, and technology. They are passionate about saving every animal and our role is to help provide the resources needed to achieve that objective.”
CUDDLY enables animal shelters and rescue organizations to create product wishlists and fundraising campaigns so donors can give transparently by purchasing products or financially donating. By connecting directly with nearly 300,000 donors, CUDDLY is helping to save thousands of animals in the most critical need.
“CUDDLY’s platform is redefining how thousands of animal welfare organizations worldwide operate by providing them with the fundraising tools they need to better support the animals in their care,” adds Zach Ullman, Vice President at Lead Edge Capital, who will join CUDDLY’s Board of Directors. “Their dedicated team and community of hundreds of thousands of donors are empowering traditionally underserved shelter and rescue ecosystems. The CUDDLY team is doing important work and we’re eager to help the company advance its mission.”
CUDDLY has experienced a 350% growth YoY since June 2019. While the global pandemic has hampered fundraising efforts for many nonprofit organizations, CUDDLY has been well positioned to step up and assist their more than 2,100 sheltering partners by providing virtual fundraising tools.
The CUDDLY community of donors continue to support the urgent cases that put such a strain on the resources of rescues and shelters. Through their proprietary fundraising platform, CUDDLY has raised over $20M in product sales and monetary donations since launching in 2014 and has recently surpassed over 10,000 campaigns.
About CUDDLY
CUDDLY is a fundraising and wishlist platform dedicated to helping animal organizations worldwide, while supporting over 2,100 non-profit animal shelters across the United States. The for-good startup seeks to help all animals find a healthy life and a loving home. Through CUDDLY, animal lovers can purchase and give in a modern, transparent way, via online shops, gift registries and monetary donations. CUDDLY also provides fundraising and marketing support, as well as valuable community business tools, to help support the important initiatives of animal welfare organizations. For more information, please visit cuddly.com.
About Lead Edge
Lead Edge Capital is a growth stage investment fund with $2 billion of capital raised since inception, and portfolio companies across the internet, software and consumer spaces – including Alibaba Group, Asana, Duo Security, Signal Sciences, Toast and TransferWise. Lead Edge Capital offers its entrepreneurs flexible capital and extensive domain expertise via its robust Limited Partner Network. Lead Edge Capital leverages its LPs to connect companies with the customers, partners, talent and advisors needed to accelerate success. Lead Edge Capital was founded in 2009 and has offices in New York City and Southern California.
