Our portfolio companies generated incredible tech and infrastructure value for the progressive movement this cycle. They worked on advancing the nation’s toughest issues, including reproductive rights, gun reform, and climate change. They helped implement novel campaigning tactics and innovations to target left-out voters. Their products, services, and technologies helped to tip close races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada to the left.
With the 2022 midterms now behind us, we’ve highlighted the impact of some of our portfolio companies on this important cycle. Let us build on these successes, insights, and learnings as we pave the way forward to 2024.
Avalanche (HGL2) fielded deep insights on different groups across America by asking 1.8k+ open-ended questions and processing 140M+ open-ended responses for 45 organizations across 50+ research projects.
They worked with major clients including Voto Latino, Supermajority, NARAL, Rise, Equis, and ParentsTogether to identify and mobilize communities around the most resonant messaging. A highlight was their partnership with Run for Something, where they created a message frame that built effective support for down-ballot candidates running for progressive education policies.
BallotReady (HGL1) reached at least 25 million voters through their partnerships with 130 organizations including Snapchat, Tinder, Spotify, and Levi’s. They collected 82.k candidates, 14k early voting locations, and 4.9k ballot measures for their platform, marking the most data they’ve ever collected.
For the first time, they were also able to provide 90% of voters access to their precise county and city commission subdistricts as a result of new shapefile collection.
Change Research (HGL2) partnered with 280+ campaigns in 48 states with polling, qualitative research, and data modeling for campaigns up and down the ballot.
They equipped 16 Democratic state legislative caucuses, state parties, and state legislative independent expenditures with insightful data from 125+ polls. They also helped position Democrats to gain control of the Pennsylvania State House for the first time in 12 years by polling for 25 candidates individually and through the Pennsylvania State House Democratic Caucus.
Civitech (2020 investment) reached 24M voters through their suite of tools in the 2022 midterms, sending 2.5M unique voter registration mailers and 22M texts to voters. They also grew their proprietary database from 11M contacts to 44M+ contacts, which is composed primarily of Rising American Electorate voters who do not appear in other commercial databases, and engaged low-income, young, and people of color voters who turned out in large numbers.
They successfully helped defeat election deniers in battleground districts including Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.
Community (2022 investment) worked with organizations including VoteAmerica, When We All Vote, Swing Left, Stand Up America, and Headcount as well as individuals like Barack and Michelle Obama, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Lopez, and Amy Schumer.
Together, they sent tens of millions of texts to mobilize and persuade their fans and supporters to vote. They were able to achieve voter registration form completion rates as high as 16% across their text campaigns — rates over 1000x higher than Instagram and Twitter.
Countable (HGL3) helped enroll 2000+ company members and reached 10M+ US employees through their Time To Vote platform, an effort pioneered by Patagonia, Levi’s, and PayPal to encourage businesses to give their staff the time and resources needed to vote on Election Day.
Countable’s Impact platform gives members the resources and tools to give employees access to and information about voting, so that workers don’t need to choose between voting and earning a paycheck.
Creative Change (formerly Outfox AI of HGL3) engaged 2.5M potential voters through the progressive creatives in their network. They powered the largest digital ads program among all of Georgia’s independent expenditure and nonprofit groups, including ads for Black Voters Matter.
Deck (HGL1) was responsible for generating 645k net Democratic votes in 2022. Campaigns that used Deck in 2022 outperformed those who didn’t by 3 points, when compared against Biden’s 2020 vote share.
Grow Progress (HGL2) tested thousands of messages designed to win voters across millions of experimental interviews.
Their clients doubled the average number of people persuaded by identifying the top performing message, as well as optimizing delivery by demographic group to quadruple it.
Hovercast (2021 investment) powered star-studded virtual events for the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, Move On, and March For Our Lives, among others.
They powered a much-anticipated WisDems fundraiser featuring a crossover of the Veep and West Wing casts, raising $700k+. Their innovative design features helped boost the $570k raised at the start of the show to $704k by the end.
Impactive (HGL3) partnered with 100+ campaigns and organizations to mobilize Democratic voters across the nation.
Across all 50 states, they sent 58M+ texts, contacted 25M+ people, checked 393k+ unique voter registrations, sent 126k+ relational messages, and completed 5k+ phone banks. They are excited to share an in-depth report soon in their blog’s 2022 Impact Report.
INTRVL (HGL5) experienced an oversubscribed first election cycle as a company.
They tackled key issues by turbocharging media and ads performance for reproductive rights in 4 states, supporting voter mobilization with Hispanic women in 3 states, and partnering on a ballot initiative with voting women in California.
People First (HGL3) reached 18M+ users organically across 693 peer to peer content pieces through their microinfluencer GOTV campaigns. Their content received 1.5M total engagements with a 7.1% average engagement rate, reaching an additional 12M Americans by amplifying paid content across key battleground states.
PF’s research of the online discourse this cycle helped inform strategies that assisted in both persuasion and GOTV messaging. They collaborated with creators across 16 key states on campaigns including Wisconsin’s Governor Tony Evers, Pennyslvania’s Get Out The Vote program, and Vote Like A Madre.
SpeechifAI (HGL5) helped progressive activists create and share 200k+ unique social media posts across all major social media platforms. These posts generated an estimated value of $10M, including nearly 2B impressions that reached every single state.
SpeechifAI was a tech partner for leading campaigns like Planned Parenthood, Wisconsin Democratic Party, Demcast, Beto for Texas, VCs for Reproductive Rights, and more.
Survey 160 (HGL3) Building on their 2020 impact, Survey 160 provided data collection support to campaigns and committees across the country, totaling more than 100,000 interviews. This included state-based work in Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada, in addition to national campaigns.
Swayable (HGL2) ran 350+ message tests for 54 different races on their creative testing platform. Persuasive creative optimized on their platform moved people to vote for clients like John Fetterman, Katie Hobbs, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Universe (HGL4) supported voter outreach for 120+ down-ballot campaigns across 11 states, including candidates for city council, school board, congress, mayor, and state representative. They also helped elect progressives to local offices like police district council, fire district director, public defender, and more.
Universe also partnered with Stac Labs and Bluebonnet Data to provide free campaign websites to midterm candidates in 5 states.
Warchest (HGL3) helped hundreds of campaigns budget a total of $1B on their app. They launched innovative tools like a better finance plan and a new spend-down feature to help campaigns spend down to zero in the final weeks of the campaign. They continue to be an industry standard for campaign budgeting up and down the ballot.
