Benevity: valuation, funding & revenue

Revenue

About $100M annual revenue — Annual revenue (as reported by The Globe and Mail), as of October 2019. Source: BetaKit (citing The Globe and Mail).

Funding history

Investors

Overview

Benevity makes software that companies use to run their employee giving, volunteering, community investment and grant programs. When an employer matches staff donations to charities, or tracks volunteer hours and reports on its social impact, there's a good chance the platform behind it is Benevity. Its clients include some of the world's best-known brands.

Bryan de Lottinville founded Benevity in Calgary in 2008. It became one of Canada's most valuable software companies without following the classic Silicon Valley venture path.

Ownership and funding

Benevity's history is a good illustration of how growth equity and private equity work, as opposed to classic venture capital.

October 2019: JMI Equity and General Atlantic, two growth investors, invested $40 million in a deal that reportedly valued Benevity at close to US$400 million.

December 2020: British private equity firm Hg agreed to acquire a controlling stake, buying shares from existing holders including the founder, JMI Equity and General Atlantic. Terms weren't officially disclosed, but reports put the valuation at about US$1.1 billion, roughly two and a half times the 2019 level in about a year. Law-firm deal records described it as the largest software deal completed in Canada in a decade at that point, and the largest in the environmental, social and governance space. The deal closed in early 2021, and Hg later brought in co-investment from impact and sustainability-focused funds.

Revenue

When it raised its Series C in October 2019, The Globe and Mail reported that Benevity generated about $100 million in annual revenue, making it one of the largest early-stage tech companies in Canada. Revenue was reportedly growing, so it would have been higher by the time of the Hg deal a year later, but no updated figure was disclosed. We haven't found a more recent reported number, so treat the 2019 figure as a floor rather than a current estimate.

What PE ownership means

Under majority private equity ownership, a company's priorities usually shift towards profitable growth, operating efficiency and, often, acquisitions that add products or customers. Owners typically plan to sell after several years, either to another investor, to a strategic buyer, or through an IPO. Our guides on selling to PE-backed companies and add-on acquisitions explain how that shapes decisions.

What this means if you're…

Selling to Benevity: frame your offer in terms of efficiency, revenue growth or measurable return. PE-owned software companies buy carefully and expect clear payback.

A nonprofit: being visible on the platforms companies use for employee giving can matter a lot for donations.

Studying valuations: Benevity's jump from about US$400 million to about US$1.1 billion in a year shows how a change of buyer type, from growth investors to a control buyer, can reset a company's price.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.

1. BetaKit
2. BetaKit