Press Release
Corsham, UK, Release: 30th January 2019. For Immediate Release.
Groop (Formerly RunAClub) Secures £3 Million Investment to Drive Growth
Today, Groop, the trusted community management platform, announced that it has closed a £3M investment to accelerate its growth.
Groop build strong, safe and sustainable communities; empowering people and society. Due to the increase of compliance requirements and growing awareness by the public regarding data privacy and security, Groop is experiencing a dramatic increase in demand for their secure club, group and community management tools. Ensuring that personal data is never misused and that organisations feel supported by the Quality Assured Governance material and secure communication tools.
Built for scale, Groop has the capacity to service a global population. With a goal of making a significant difference to communities and the fabric of society – allowing everyone to belong and be inspired to take part, Groops’ users positively impact society’s wider issues of loneliness, poverty, mental health and obesity.
Formed in 2012, Groop has successfully built a loyal customer base and has supported over 500,000 participations in community activity; recording over 279,000 volunteer hours through several charity organisations such as The Royal Voluntary Service and Young Manchester and Local Authorities such as Essex County Council.
As cited in a recent YouGov survey, over 20 million people have given their time to volunteering in the last year. Groop seeks to open up further volunteering opportunities and enrich the experience for everyone. Groop is the place where volunteers can access opportunities, share experiences and organise their time efficiently, and keep momentum with their desire to give their time. Groop enables the growing shift towards Micro Volunteering delivery tools that will streamline and accelerate onboarding processes into these opportunities.
“With this investment, we are enhancing our platform to service all community groups from grassroots to national organisations across all sectors, to become the trusted, global Community Management Platform,” commented Sally Higham, Groop CEO & Founder. ‘‘We’re enabling everyone, via our platform, to get started and more effectively run a club or group with all the complex issues of governance, communications and data protection taken care of. Meaning, our customers can now focus on making an impact within their community, the Groop platform supports this instantly and so much more.”
A significant part of the investment has been made by Hartham Group set up by their CEO and serial entrepreneur Jeff Thomas. Hartham Group invests in companies that use technology to catalyse change in our connected society, promoting a citizen centric data economy; bringing research, learning, growth and places together.
Jeff Thomas commented; ‘We are living in a world of unprecedented change. We are witnessing a revolution founded on data, which will have a more profound change on individuals than any revolution that has come before. Data and Digital now mediate our interactions with others. It is critical that we embrace this change or get left behind. We must build a connected society that uses data responsibly to create economic and social value. Groop embraces all of our values. We have invested equity and will continue to provide management experience and support to propel Groop into hyper growth.”
Sally commented that their investment partner has provided significant business, technology and strategic support in addition to the financial input, “Jeff is an extraordinary, insightful and creative individual who has championed Groop and the social impact we achieve. With his help, we will attain the potential we always knew we could reach; creating meaningful social impact by helping communities support the next generation of people who care about each other.”
Find out more about the Groop platform.
