Business
Digital greeting card startup Givingli wraps $3 million seed round
While the digital revolution has transformed nearly every social interaction and communication type in the past couple decades, the humble birthday card has shown surprising resiliency.
Givingli, a small LA-based startup with an app aiming to challenge how Gen Z sends digital greeting cards, is picking up some seed funding from investors betting on their philosophy around modern gifting. The startup has raised a $3 million seed round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, while Snap’s Yellow Accelerator also participated in the raise.
The wife and husband co-founding team stumbled into the world of digital greetings and gifts after abandoning physical invitations for their wedding and exploring how the digital greetings space had and hadn’t evolved. They’ve taken a mobile-first approach to tackling greetings for special events and moments where users just want to let someone know they’re thinking of them.
“Initially, we thought it would mainly be birthdays and categories like weddings, graduation, etc., and I think we just threw in some ‘just because’ cards, but then that became the most popular category, by far,” CEO Nicole Emrani Green tells TechCrunch. “I think that it’s what kicked off our virality, because obviously with every Givingli sent you’re pulling someone else in and then the conversation continues.”
The app monetizes through a $3.99 monthly premium subscription which gives users access to a greater variety of digital greeting designs from the more than 40 artists that the startup has licensed work from. Alongside paying for premium subscriptions, users can also shop for digital gift cards to send along with their greetings. Givingli’s gift card storefront has more than 150 brands available including Amazon, Spotify, Nike and DoorDash.
A big sell for Givingli’s offering has been its customization. Although users are pushed to select from the hundreds of available greeting cards, they can also spice them up by adding photos or videos in addition to writing text. The aim is to create a moment that rivals messages that can be shared via email, text or on social media services.
“For a generation of digitally native users, it’s not surprising that the ability to like, swipe, upvote or shoot a quick text from our phones have become the predominant ways we connect with others,” said Ohanian in a press release announcing the seed round. “What first attracted me to Givingli is that Nicole and Ben acutely understood this evolution and built a platform that provides the creative tools needed to elevate those interactions and deepen connections. Whether it’s sending a digital birthday gift, or a note just because – it’s clear that Givingli has put snail mail on notice.”
One of the team’s big challenges has been highlighting the visibility of their native app which users download to send greetings. Last fall, the Givingli team debuted a partnership with Snap that brought their gifting service inside Snapchat via a bite-sized Snap Mini app integration. The rollout followed the startup’s participation in Snap’s Yellow Accelerator program.
Emrani Green says that partnership has helped bring more users to their platform, and that more than 5 million people have used Givingli to send greetings since the app launched in 2019.
-
Entertainment6 days ago
Hands-on with the Claude AI app: It’s pleasant to use, but janky
-
Business6 days ago
Haun Ventures is riding the bitcoin high
-
Entertainment5 days ago
Apple Watch Series 9 vs. SE: A smartwatch skeptic tested both for 13 days
-
Entertainment6 days ago
5 essential gadgets for turning your home into a self-care sanctuary
-
Business3 days ago
Google lays off workers, Tesla cans its Supercharger team and UnitedHealthcare reveals security lapses
-
Entertainment4 days ago
The greatest films on Prime Video right now
-
Business5 days ago
Google dubs Epic’s demands from its antitrust win ‘unnecessary’ and ‘far beyond the scope’ of the verdict
-
Business5 days ago
Apple: pay attention to emerging markets, not falling China sales