Givefront, a fintech startup founded by Harvard dropout Matt Tengtrakool, aims to revolutionize financial management for U.S. nonprofits with tailored solutions that address their unique operational needs.
Over the past decade, fintech startups have significantly transformed how American businesses manage their finances. However, much of this innovation has primarily benefited for-profit companies, leaving nonprofits to contend with outdated financial tools that do not cater to their specific needs.
Enter Givefront, a startup backed by Y Combinator, co-founded by 21-year-old Matt Tengtrakool, a Harvard dropout, and Aidan Sunbury from UC Berkeley. The company’s mission is to create a financial platform specifically designed for nonprofits, ranging from food banks and animal shelters to NGOs, churches, and homeowner associations.
Nonprofits represent approximately 6% of the U.S. economy and handle trillions of dollars annually. Despite this, many organizations still rely on cumbersome financial systems that hinder their operations. Givefront aims to bridge this gap by providing modern tools for spend management, compliance, and reporting, tailored to the unique ways nonprofits operate.
Before launching Givefront, Tengtrakool explored the fintech landscape with a microloan aggregation startup in Nigeria. He also gained firsthand experience working within various nonprofits while studying computer science and statistics at Harvard, even managing some organizations himself. At one nonprofit, he played a key role in scaling fundraising efforts to nearly $500,000. These experiences highlighted a critical issue: nonprofits face stringent regulatory and reporting standards, yet they lack access to the modern financial tools that for-profit companies often take for granted.
“I’ve always been interested in financial systems, and this work fits naturally with that,” Tengtrakool shared in an interview. “While helping run these nonprofits with a few other students, we realized most of them didn’t have adequate financial tools to ensure compliance or protect their tax-exempt status. The tools they relied on were completely out of sync with what’s considered modern in the startup world.”
The initial version of Givefront was developed as an in-house solution to address these challenges. What started as a fix for the nonprofits Tengtrakool was directly involved with quickly garnered interest from local organizations across the United States. As the product evolved, the team honed its focus on creating a single, integrated financial platform designed exclusively for registered nonprofits, a sector that encompasses approximately 1.9 million organizations nationwide.
While Givefront may initially resemble corporate spend tools like Ramp or Brex, its nonprofit-centric approach is what truly sets it apart. Nonprofits operate under constraints that most businesses do not encounter. They must manage restricted and unrestricted funding, report expenditures back to donors and foundations, track volunteer reimbursements, and comply with IRS Form 990 requirements. Many nonprofits juggle multiple grants simultaneously, each with its own specific rules regarding spending and reporting.
Older nonprofit software platforms, such as Blackbaud, Sage, and MIP, continue to dominate the market, but they often fall short in providing real-time spending controls, intuitive approval processes, and seamless integrations with the tools nonprofits currently use.
Rather than attempting to replace these existing systems, Givefront positions itself as a specialized layer that complements them. The platform integrates with existing accounting software and adds essential features that nonprofits require, including grant-level budgeting, audit-ready receipt capture, nonprofit-specific spend controls, and automated reporting.
“Many of the workflows we’re building are deeply specific to how this part of the economy works,” Tengtrakool noted. “Our workflows and integrations are a 10x improvement when compared to traditional corporate or spend management tools.”
Currently, Givefront generates revenue through card interchange fees and subscription charges associated with its bill pay service. Looking ahead, the startup plans to diversify its revenue streams by introducing related products such as payroll, banking, budgeting tools, and potentially investment or endowment management services.
Since launching its card services about six months ago, Givefront has onboarded hundreds of nonprofits onto its platform. The company reports that both its revenue and total payment volume are growing at more than 200% month over month. By the end of this year, Givefront anticipates collaborating with around 1,000 nonprofits, with a goal of expanding that number to approximately 5,000 organizations by mid-next year.
Recently, Givefront secured $2 million in a funding round led by Script Capital, with contributions from Y Combinator, C3 Ventures, and Phoenix Fund, as well as angel investors, including the CEOs of Chariot and Wealthfront. The new capital will be utilized to enhance distribution, expand the team, and further develop its card and bill pay offerings.
As Givefront continues to grow, it aims to redefine financial management for nonprofits, providing them with the modern tools they need to thrive in an increasingly complex economic landscape, according to The American Bazaar.