Juneteenth
Congress voted Wednesday to make Juneteenth, or June 19th, the 12th federal holiday. On June 17th, the bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden. This is significant: As Ella F. Washington and Jasmine Sanders note in the HBR article below: “Juneteenth is not just Black history, it is American history. Over the past year, […]
Together We Go Far: Mergers & Acquisitions in Political Tech
Over the past 6 months, there have been a number of acquisitions in the political tech space including several in our portfolio. Mobilize, CallTimeAI, Outreach Circle, The Tuesday Company, and FactBase have all found a home at larger companies and have continued to do their work from a new perch. We see these transactions as […]
Our 2020 Political Tech Landscape Report
Higher Ground Labs is excited to unveil our 2020 Political Tech Landscape Report, a comprehensive account of the biggest political tech trends, opportunities, and learnings coming out of the historic 2020 election cycle. Higher Ground Labs is excited to unveil our 2020 Political Tech Landscape Report, a comprehensive account of the biggest political tech trends, […]
Meet Hovercast
We sat down with Eli Stonberg, Founder/CEO of Hovercast, to learn more about the company’s vision for participatory virtual events. HGL: Hovercast is reimagining virtual events as two-way, participatory interactions. Tell me more about your company and its mission. Eli Stonberg: Hovercast is an interactive graphics toolset and virtual events platform that provides campaigns with […]
Welcoming Our New Advisors
We all know it takes a village to raise a child – especially this year. But at HGL, we have also found it takes a village to build a company – and we have the best village possible. The Higher Ground Labs Advisory Board plays a critical role in our community. These leaders in technology, […]
How Tech Helped Democrats Win: By the Numbers
EVIDENCE-BASED ANALYSIS: EFFICACY OF TECHNOLOGY IN POLITICS Jerry Seinfeld once asked President Obama which sport most resembled politics. Without hesitation, President Obama said it was football: a full-contact, grinding game of inches. In our polarized electorate, Democrats must claw over inches. Incremental advantages that tip us over 50% in vote-share are invaluable. At Higher Ground […]
Announcing HGL’s 2021 Investment Thesis
At Higher Ground Labs, we invest in technology that helps progressives win. That has been our core mission since 2017, and it guides our work every day. To help fulfill that mission, we write an annual investment thesis to highlight specific areas of underinvestment and technological need in the progressive ecosystem. We are excited to […]
Introducing “Revenue Based Investing”
Written by Shomik Dutta and Teddy GoldHigher Ground Labs is embracing the future of sustainable impact investing. Equity investing in political tech is challenging and may require re-imagination. For most political tech endeavors, venture-scale returns are an unobtainable fantasy. We see hard ceilings on exit possibilities for most of our companies because there are not many acquirers and […]
The evolving startup landscape post-2020
Four weeks into 2021, we are seeing big, exciting changes in our portfolio. We anticipated many of these shifts following the 2020 cycle – the political industry is cyclical. There are predictable peaks every two years where our companies are called to the forefront of our space to perform at the highest level. These seasons […]
Meet Greenfly
Higher Ground Labs recently invested in a technology startup called Greenfly. Greenfly is an advocacy platform that enables campaigns to manage, exchange, and communicate media with supporters who then organically spread the campaign’s message on social media platforms. Using Greenfly, campaigns are able to track performance and identify what content is performing best with which […]
Why we debrief
The 2020 election feels like a lifetime ago. Today, we are preparing for the Inauguration, building a new administration, and dealing with the final, desperate days of the Trump era. We are no longer in the throes of the Election season – and yet this week, Higher Ground Labs, the Movement Cooperative, and Digidems, together […]
Celebrating the Acquisition of Mobilize
EveryAction Acquires Mobilize Today, EveryAction announced its acquisition of a Higher Ground Labs portfolio company, Mobilize. This combination represents one of the larger deals in political and nonprofit tech and ensures the permanent and robust presence of one of the progressive movement’s most impactful technological innovations. Mobilize and HGL have been in lock step since […]