Backed by high-profile venture capital firms such as Benchmark Capital and Softbank, Charitableway, which describes itself as an application service provider, notified most of its 100-person work force last week that their last day would be March 26. A small group of employees will be retained to help with the liquidation, Charitableway spokeswoman Laura Segal said.
Charitableway had hoped to capitalise on the wave of charities and nonprofit organisations that rode the boom in e-commerce early last year to help raise money. Privately held Charitableway provided automated, Web-based donations systems for United Way organisations, nonprofit federations, corporations and financial institutions.
The company attracted US$35 million in its second round of funding last February, two months before the April downturn in technology stocks. From that point on, fewer charities were willing to front money for new technology, Segal said.
"We weren't hitting the metrics we needed to sustain our business," she said.
