Three years ago, Ben and Nicole Green were planning their wedding and decided to go digital with registries to save on money and materials. But when it came time to gift others, while they preferred going the digital route \u2014 as they did with their wedding \u2014 they found that digital gifting platforms on the web didn\u2019t meet their criterion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe noticed there was no platform we would actually want to use,\u201d Nicole Green told in an email interview. \u201cIn combination, I recognized there was a gap in the market for a more genuine and authentic way for people to connect and celebrate one another in the digital age.\u201d<\/p>\n
So in 2019, Ben and Nicole co-founded Givingli, an online gifting service that lets users customize digital greetings and send gifts to anyone. The company today announced that it raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Seven Seven Six, the VC firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, with participation from Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi L\u00fctke. The proceeds bring the 13-person, Los Angeles\u2013based company\u2019s total raised to $13 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doubling down on Givingli because they\u2019ve continued to not just organically grow, but thrive \u2014 even during these uncertain times \u2014 by productizing kindness & connection,\u201d Ohanian told via email. \u201cThis is as much a social network as it is a gifting platform and it\u2019s been valuable for all sides: artists who design the gifts, brands who are partners, and ultimately the gift givers and receivers who keep coming back and spreading the word.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Givingli\"](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/gp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/b11989_eb7b22af22734a24b3a73b29ff4158b6_mv2.webp.png\")
<\/p>\nImage Credits:<\/strong> Givingli<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Indeed, Nicole sees Givingli as more than your average digital gift marketplace. The service offers messaging features, including group chats with family and friends, who can react with tokens of appreciation to e-cards and e-gifts. Users get reminders for friends\u2019 and families\u2019 birthdays. And for cards, which can be shared via email, text or social media, customers can choose from designs contributed by independent artists and brand partners such as Starbucks, Nike and Target \u2014 and add their own photos or videos in addition to writing text.<\/p>\n In 2020, Givingli launched a partnership with Snap that brought its gifting service inside of Snapchat via an in-app integration. The company\u2019s current focus is a desktop app, launching soon in early access, which Nicole says will \u201cbring even more features for power gifters.\u201d (Givingli was previously iOS only.)<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are looking for more accessible and practical options to stay connected and celebrate a special relationship in their lives. They\u2019re looking to share love and words of compassion from a distance,\u201d Nicole said. \u201cGivingli is focused on the heart and sentiment of gifting, while sparing our customers from losing time on travel, waste and stress.\u201d<\/p>\n Will platforms like Givingli ever replace physical gifting? That seems unlikely (see American Greetings). But there are signs that the demand for digital gifting solutions is growing. A June 2022 survey from Incisiv \u2014 sponsored by digital gifting vendor GiftNow, granted \u2014 found that 67% of consumers prefer instant digital gifts. Allied Market Research estimates that the market for digital gift cards alone was worth $258.34 billion in 2020.<\/p>\n Givingli makes money by charging users a monthly subscription fee for access to the platform, plus additional fees for premium cards. Nicole wouldn\u2019t comment on revenue but said that \u201cmillions\u201d of people have used the service to date.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pandemic has sped things up and we\u2019ve been moving fast to keep up,\u201d Nicole said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to use this latest funding round to create more of that value for all members of our community \u2014 from loyal and daily users to our trusted brand and loyal partners, with desirable cards and gifts on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three years ago, Ben and Nicole Green were planning their wedding and decided to go digital with registries to save on money and materials. But when it came time to gift others, while they preferred going the digital route \u2014 as they did with their wedding \u2014 they found that digital gifting platforms on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1240567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1240565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}