A note from Plural’s CEO, Damola Ogundipe:
Today, we’re thrilled to announce our $10 million Series A round of financing. The round was led by Austin, Texas-based S3 Ventures, with new investors, Menlo Ventures, Consonance Investment Managers, Debut Capital, AJ Shankar (CEO at Everlaw), and Colin Kaepernick.
Returning investors include Backstage Capital, ffVC, M25, Camelback Ventures, and Higher Ground Labs.
The investment brings Plural’s total funding since launching our legislative intelligence and collaboration platform in 2019 to over $14 million. The new funding will help us aggressively expand our sales and marketing efforts, broaden and accelerate our product development, and continue our social-impact-driven mission.
The Investors
Aaron Perman, Principal at S3 (lead investor): “Plural has built the most effective software platform for government affairs professionals with its collaborative workflow and rich public policy dataset.” said Aaron Perman, Principal, S3 Ventures. “The company has an impressive track record of enabling its large and rapidly growing client base of Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, and leading advocacy organizations to achieve their public policy objectives. We are excited to partner with CEO Damola Ogundipe and the impressive team to further accelerate Plural’s rapid growth.”
Bobak Emamian, Partner at Debut Capital: “Since meeting Damola in 2020, we have been beyond impressed with his leadership and the team’s ability to build a world-class product and organization.” said Bobak Emamian, Partner at Debut Capital. “Plural has consistently met and exceeded its goals and we couldn’t be more thrilled for this next chapter.”
The Journey
When we started Plural, we began our mission of using data and technology to increase government transparency and increase democratic participation. Since bringing our flagship legislative intelligence and collaboration software to market in 2019, 100+ organizations and 2,000+ users have tracked and influenced 50,000+ bills all over the country. We’ve helped organizations work and influence policy in areas ranging from data privacy to voting rights, infrastructure to women’s health, and cannabis to emissions. We are proud and excited to have been able to build a high-growth company that is at the forefront of social good.
The future of Plural will continue to be driven by our values: exercising transparency, being people-first, and practicing audacious thinking. As we scale, we’ll continue to invest in our people and our products as we build a world-class public policy data and software company.
We’re thankful to have S3 join us as a partner, and Aaron Perman join our Board of Directors. Aaron’s passionate belief in my leadership, our team, and our collective vision is exciting and we’re looking forward to working and building together.
I’d also like to thank our over 100 customers, large and small, across the country. We’re fortunate to work with organizations as diverse as Comcast, Google, Common Cause, The Center for Secure and Modern Elections, America Votes GA, The University of Minnesota, Fredrikson and Byron Law, and The Austin Chamber of Commerce among many others. Thank you all for giving us an opportunity to win your business, prove our value, and continue to innovate how smart policy work gets done with you.
Our Products
Plural: Using legislative intelligence, our flagship product, Plural automates the process of discovering, tracking, and analyzing legislation in progress. For example, surfacing similar bill text, or identifying which bills among hundreds or thousands, are gaining momentum. Using Plural’s Workspaces feature, customers can invite internal teams, clients, partners, organizers, and activists to collaborate, without the cost of licensing seats.
Open States by Plural: Since 2009, Open States has provided advocacy organizations, journalists, researchers, and the public with data about legislation across all 50 statues, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. In addition to information publicly available and searchable on the site, Open States supports a community of over 11,000 technical users by providing API access and downloads of aggregated legislative information.
The Plural Team
I’m incredibly grateful for the team we’ve built at Plural. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each one of our team members for joining me on this journey. As I often say, we’re a team, not a family. But the strongest and most successful teams are unified in their goal, unwavering in their commitment to accomplishing that goal, resilient in the midst of adversity, and clear-eyed and heart-filled in their trust in each other. Thank you all for upholding our company culture and our values.
I’d also like to thank my co-founders, Yemi Adewunmi and Shawntera Hardy. You’re two of the most incredible, ambitious, and resilient people I’ve ever met, and it’s been an honor working and building this company with you.
