Sun Sentinel Broward Edition

FAU program’s 1st startup launches charitable app

- By Marcia Heroux Pounds Staff writer

“Life is short. Make your Mark.”

That’s the slogan for new social-good tech company Stand4, one of the first startup ventures mentored at FAU Tech Runway in Boca Raton. After months of beta testing, the mobile app and website are set to launch Wednesday.

“They’re proof that it works,” said Kimberly Gramm, co-founder of Tech Runway’s entreprene­urial program, which started in 2014.

The Boynton Beach company, which connects individual­s, charities and corporatio­ns, was co-founded in 2014 by Andy Hill and Manish Hirapara. They’ve raised a half-million dollars in angel funding and now lead a team of 22 people.

Stand4, which has 5,000 users even before its official launch, is aimed toward millennial­s who may not have the money to contribute to a charity but who want to “take a stand” on various causes. So users are given tasks to do, such as answering a trivia question, and a donation to a cause is made by a brand sponsor.

To encourage participat­ion, users receive updates to show and track the effect made with their “stands.”

“Users want to get involved. They can feel the movement building and they want to be a part of it,” Hill said.

The for-profit business makes money both from tracking user activity for their sponsors and from advertisin­g. Companies can use the data to brag about their support of a cause.

Gramm said Tech Runway helped introduce Stand4 to potential sponsors including Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, which recently moved to Boca Raton.

“We definitely got a lot of help from mentors looking out for us and for partnershi­p opportunit­ies,” Hill said.

Other brand sponsors include This Bar Saves Lives, which makes fair-trade ingredient snack bars toward treatments to malnourish­ed children; Pasta Chips, a California business that sells chips made with semolina flour and Italian herbs; and Half United, a North Carolina jewelry company.

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