Startup Tiltify wants to use lessons from Twitch's success in the gaming industry to change the way charities interact with their audiences. A recent $6.5 million raise will help them do just that.
The Los Angeles-based crowdfunding platform was launched in 2014 by Michael Wasserman and Mark Russell to get younger generations participating in charity fundraisers.
<p>"There's a couple things that came up with every client," said Wasserman, a 12-year veteran of the charity space. "Consultants would ask me about younger donors and younger fundraisers: 'How do we work with the younger generation?', was sort of one side of it. And then the second side was thinking about how people are interacting through social media," he said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzNTI4Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzgyNzI0OX0.F9py3amKeed5j9OkVc-J8-P6QkAfoin5dce1m9VHws4/img.png?width=980" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzNTI4Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzgyNzI0OX0.F9py3amKeed5j9OkVc-J8-P6QkAfoin5dce1m9VHws4/img.png?width=980" id="5de94" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dfa5ab617376eb3f15c53224e411dde7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Tiltify" /></a>
</p><p>Wasserman decided to launch Tiltify to give donors new ways to interact with their favorite charities beyond social media.<br/></p><p>It took a cue from Amazon-owned Twitch. Its platform, launched in 2007, allows viewers not just to watch, but to take part in their favorite players' streaming video game. Tiltify wanted to do the same for live auctions and charity events.</p><p>"I was watching one yesterday on our site where people were weight lifting…All those like fun interactions where it sort of changed the value proposition from, 'Hey can you just drop off somebody at this sort of static mailbox page' that didn't do anything to a form of entertainment and more of an exchange to like, 'Well, let's get involved together and get my whole online community together,'" said Wasserman.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzNTI4MS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDc4MTYzM30.1UI2_8LchbpKe0iSX1lWQuijTIgRlfWb8qCtClnQWTU/img.png?width=980" id="9044d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f6d8597f430b2022422ada5dc3ce0410" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Tiltify co-founder Michael Wasserman.
<p>The approach lets charities make their outreach efforts more conversational and interesting, Wasserman said, allowing them to expand beyond the usual charity campaign.</p><p>Pace Capital led the recent funding round, which the company will use to develop faster technology and unique fundraiser-focused features. Those include donation polls and reward incentives. Tiltify also recently inked an exclusive partnership with TikTok.</p><p>And with the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement and recent California wildfires, it's been more popular with a record number of new users to the platform, Wasserman said.</p><p>In April, Wasserman said he was contacted by over 400 charities and year-over-year user growth is 1,000%.</p>
<p>To create an account, charities must be verified by the Internal Revenue Service. Once they're approved, the services are free of charge.<br/></p><p>"We never wanted a barrier for someone's favorite charity. Maybe they're really small. Maybe that charity only does $50,000 a year; we didn't want that to be a barrier for any organization," said Wasserman.</p><p>The startup charges based on an annual tier. Larger accounts can opt for a different model, in which Tiltify takes between 3% and 5% based on the volume of traffic coming in.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/crowdfunding-market" target="_blank">crowdfunding market</a> is expected to reach $28.8 billion by 2025.<br/></p>
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Beyond Limits, a Glendale, Calif.-based company that builds human-like reasoning into its artificial intelligence, has taken its tech from outer space onto factory floors and to hospitals.
Now as it seeks to expand its global footprint, the company said it raised $133 million in Series C funding. In addition to an expansion of its services, it hopes to build up its software platforms.
The round was led by Group 42, an artificial intelligence and cloud computing company in Abu Dhabi, and its longtime and ongoing partner bp ventures, an investment arm of the British energy group. Founded in 2014, Beyond Limits is based on technologies developed at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and funded by NASA and the Department of Defense.
<p>"We are seeing unprecedented, world-wide demand for systems that go beyond the limitations of conventional AI," said AJ Abdallat, CEO and co-founder of Beyond Limits, in a statement. "Our cognitive software has the ability to understand situations and place problems in real-world contexts as well as to learn over time."</p><p>The company joined up with bp ventures early on when BP was looking for technological ways to prevent another industrial disaster like Deepwater Horizon, the largest recorded marine oil spill. The explosion and spill from an oil rig leased by BP killed 11 people and devastated sea and avian life in the Gulf of Mexico.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..."> Beyond Limits co-founders AJ Abdallat (L) and Mark James (R). </small></p><p>Beyond Limits' technology uses bio-inspired algorithms that attempt to imitate how the human brain works and provide explainable, transparent data rather than conventional "black box" AI results.<br/></p><p>Beyond Limits has worked with a giant energy production company to help expand and increase their production in mature subsurface reservoirs to lower the cost of production. It's also worked with healthcare providers to accurately diagnose patient conditions and major financial institutions on applying cognitive reasoning to fintech. </p><p>Beyond Limits said Tuesday it plans to use the Series C raise to launch Beyond Limits Asia, regionally based in Singapore and operating in Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo as it develops AI software that mimics human deduction and reasoning. The company also plans to expand into advanced manufacturing and financial services, a representative told dot.LA.</p><p>In 2019, the company received $25 million in financing from Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy to build an AI-controlled power plant.</p>
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