I’m excited to announce SureImpact won today’s City Spotlight: Columbus pitch-off! Winning a free exhibition space and a spot in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200, the Ohio-based company pitched alongside Skuld and Healia Health on TechCrunch Live earlier today.
Founder and CEO Sheri Chaney Jones, pitched to two fantastic judges – Anna Mason (Managing Partner, Rise of the Rest Seed Fund at Revolution) and Parul Singh (General Partner, Initialized Capital).
In four-minutes, Sheri explained how SureImpact modernizes the social service and social impact sectors. With a case-management based integrated platform, SureImpact SaaS platform allows both the organization and its funders to clearly understand key impact metrics and ROI – real time and with less demand on the non-profit.
Historically, organizations relied on top level impact metrics to share with those that contribute into the organization. With the increasing demand in real-time social impact data, non-profits are required to elevate their tracking and reporting capacities. SureImpact solves the technology gap with automated data collection and impact evaluation capacity, that connects all players in the social impact ecosystem.
Sheri says, non-profits no longer need to “waste time manipulating reports for their funders, and wasting funders time by having to wade through grant narratives and aggregated data to understand their collective impact.”
The company says it developed the product with 10 paid beta customers, paying $15,000 annually. After launching in February 2020, the company touts a whopping 220 organizations on its platform, across 50 US markets. SureImpact has raised approximately $1.6 M in funding from a variety of angels and VCs.
An expert in her own right, Sheri has over 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector, as a serial social impact founder and working directly with mission driven organizations.
Special thanks to the wonderful judges and the founders who took the stage with fire and pitch mastery.
technology is a lightweight material that has an extraordinary ability to diffuse energy (whether from impact, heat or electrical surge, for example). It is produced from 100% reclaimed carbon fiber, enabling new, high-volume, energy-efficient products that have a low carbon footprint.”
“Yoon has been a Venture Investor and strategic partner to many Silicon Valley startups/founders for 18 years prior to Muirwoods. Yoon founded a seed fund, Forest Ventures focusing in automotive sector and was an investment director at SAIC capital, one of the leaders in China’s automotive industry. Before SAIC, she led the Corporate Venture Group at Maxim Integrated, where she led multiple strategic technology acquisitions and venture investments. Earlier in her career, Yoon was one of the founding members at Samsung Ventures.”
“Gabriel is the Director of Innovation, focused on mobility and energy, for Elemental Excelerator, a climatetech accelerator founded in 2009 in Hawaii. Previously, Gabriel was on the founding team at Lime, where he spent three years working on government relations, data policy, and transit partnerships globally. He has also worked at and consulted to Chariot, Zipcar, Superpedestrian, and Spin. In addition, he founded and ran a large environmental nonprofit and built a social innovation consultancy, as well as attempting to build a company to help small businesses pursue energy efficiency retrofits.”
“Victoria is General Partner at Prelude Ventures, where her climate tech investments span mobility, food and agriculture, clean energy, sustainable apparel and carbon markets. Prior to Prelude Ventures, Victoria worked on climate change strategy at BCG and started an agriculture supply chain company. Earlier, she led Finance at a major solar manufacturer. Victoria holds an MBA and M.S. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University. She also holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was a Copland Scholar. Victoria lives in San Francisco with her husband and young son.”
“Sven Strohband is a partner and managing director at Khosla Ventures, and led the firm’s early investments in Berkshire Grey, GitLab, Hermeus and Rocket Lab among others. An engineer at heart, Sven is passionate about technologies that forge new industries and accelerate novel user experiences.
John Du is a partner at GM Ventures and the chief technologist for GM China. Prior to this appointment, John was director of General Motors Research & Development organization’s China Science Lab, which he led from its founding in 2009. He was responsible for building a strong and innovative research team and leading the research and development in intelligent and connected vehicles, battery, advanced materials and electrified propulsion systems. Prior to GM, Du held several positions at Intel Corp as early as 1993, leading the Intel network processor business expansion in China in 2001; serving as Director of Intel China Research Center. John received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology in 1989 and an Executive MBA from China Europe International Business School in 2010.