These 21-year-old dropouts raised $2M to build Givefront, a fintech platform built for nonprofitsOver the past decade, fintech startups have transformed how U.S. businesses manage money. Brex streamlined corporate cards. Ramp reshaped spend controls. Mercury reimagined startup banking. Yet one massive segment of the economy was left behind. Nonprofits.
Givefront is stepping into that gap. The YC-backed fintech startup was founded by two 21-year-old dropouts, Matt Tengtrakool from Harvard and Aidan Sunbury from UC Berkeley. Their goal is simple but ambitious. Build modern financial infrastructure designed specifically for nonprofits, not retrofitted from corporate tools.
Nonprofits represent roughly six percent of U.S. GDP and move trillions of dollars each year. Despite that scale, many still rely on outdated systems that were never built for modern financial workflows. Givefront believes this mismatch is holding the sector back and that purpose-built fintech can unlock real efficiency gains.
The idea behind Givefront did not start in a pitch deck. It grew out of first-hand experience. Before launching the company, Tengtrakool experimented with a microloan aggregation project in Nigeria. Later, while studying computer science and statistics at Harvard, he worked inside multiple nonprofit organizations and helped run several himself.
At one organization, he helped grow donations to nearly $500,000. Along the way, he kept running into the same problems. Nonprofits faced strict compliance rules and complex reporting requirements, yet lacked even basic modern financial tools. Everything from expense tracking to grant reporting felt fragile and manual.
That gap stood out even more as Tengtrakool compared nonprofit workflows to what startups take for granted. Corporate teams enjoy real-time spend controls, automated approvals, and clean integrations. Nonprofits, by contrast, were stuck stitching together legacy software and spreadsheets just to stay compliant.
Givefront began as an internal solution. Tengtrakool built the first version to support the organizations he worked with directly. As word spread, more local nonprofits asked to use the tools. What started as a side project quickly showed signs of broader demand.
The team eventually narrowed its focus to a unified financial platform built exclusively for registered nonprofits. In the U.S. alone, there are around 1.9 million of them. That scale convinced the founders they were not chasing a niche. They were addressing a neglected market.
When Givefront joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch, the company initially explored a broad product vision that included banking and accounting. Reality hit fast. Convincing nonprofits to replace accountants or core banking relationships proved slow and painful.
The team pivoted. Instead of asking organizations to overhaul their entire financial stack, Givefront focused on cards and spend management. The switch made adoption far easier. Changing a card is a smaller decision than changing a bank or accounting system.
While Givefront’s features may resemble platforms like Ramp or Brex on the surface, the similarities end quickly. Nonprofits operate under constraints that most businesses never face. They manage restricted and unrestricted funds. They report spending to donors and foundations. They track volunteer expenses. They file IRS Form 990 disclosures.
Many nonprofits juggle dozens of grants at once. Each grant comes with its own rules, budgets, and reporting timelines. One mistake can put funding or tax-exempt status at risk. Traditional corporate spend tools were never built for that reality.
Legacy nonprofit systems such as Blackbaud, Sage, and MIP still dominate the market. However, these tools often lack real-time controls, modern approval workflows, and clean integrations. Teams are forced to choose between compliance and usability.
Givefront does not try to rip those systems out. Instead, it positions itself as a vertical layer that sits on top of existing accounting software. The platform integrates with legacy systems while adding nonprofit-specific features that actually match how organizations operate.
These include grant-based budgeting, automated reporting, receipt capture designed for audits, and spend controls tied to funding restrictions. The goal is not to replace accounting software but to modernize everything around it.
The founders argue that this vertical focus is what makes Givefront powerful. Nonprofit workflows are not edge cases. They are core requirements. Designing around them from day one creates a meaningful advantage over general-purpose tools.
Givefront makes money through a mix of card interchange and subscriptions linked to its bill pay features. Over time, the company plans to expand into adjacent products, including payroll, banking, budgeting, and potentially investment or endowment management.
The early traction has been strong. Since launching its cards roughly six months ago, Givefront has onboarded hundreds of nonprofits. The company reports more than 200 percent month-over-month growth in revenue and total payment volume.
By the end of the year, Givefront expects to serve around 1,000 organizations. The longer-term goal is to reach 5,000 nonprofits by the middle of next year. If successful, that would signal real momentum in a sector that typically adopts technology slowly.
The founding team’s age has shaped the journey in unexpected ways. Alongside Tengtrakool and Sunbury, Givefront includes a 17-year-old founding engineer. For some nonprofit leaders, the team’s youth feels refreshing and energizing. For others, it raises concerns about trust and experience.
That tension is especially visible in financial infrastructure, where reliability matters more than hype. The founders acknowledge the skepticism and say it has forced them to build stronger safeguards, clearer documentation, and tighter controls from the start.
Churches and religious organizations have emerged as one of Givefront’s fastest-growing customer segments. Many rely on volunteer treasurers instead of full-time finance teams. Automation makes an immediate difference in those environments, reducing errors and saving time.
Recently, Givefront closed a $2 million seed round led by Script Capital. Y Combinator, C3 Ventures, Phoenix Fund, and several angel investors also participated, including the CEOs of Chariot and Wealthfront.
The funding will help Givefront scale distribution, grow its team, and expand its cards and bill pay offerings. For the founders, the goal remains clear. Bring modern fintech infrastructure to a sector that has been overlooked for far too long.
If Givefront succeeds, it could do for nonprofits what Brex, Ramp, and Mercury did for startups. Not by copying their playbook, but by building something entirely different.
