Volunteering platform startup headed by 22-year-old raises $12 million Seed round

Israeli startup Vee, which is developing a volunteering platform, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $12 million in a Seed round. The round was led by State of Mind Ventures, with participation from noted Israeli VCs Oryzn Capital, Vertex, Viola Ventures, and well-known angel investors including Eynat Guez of Papaya Global, Amir Shevat of Innovation Endeavors, Gil Hirsch of StreamElements, and Guy Shamir of Mivtach Shamir.

Founded in 2020 by 22-year-old entrepreneur May Piamenta (CEO), Gil Amsalem (CTO), and Avi Amor (COO), Vee has raised a total of $13.5 million to date. Vee’s platform hosts a wide range of volunteering opportunities such as food aid, animal welfare, youth mentoring, and environmental initiatives, enabling HR teams to easily find, coordinate, and share charity events and in effect build a community for giving back inside the company.

“I set up my first business in eighth grade, purchasing swimwear and then selling it on. I sent out deliveries throughout the entire country, with the operation being run out of my home in Dimona,” Piamenta told Calcalist. “I sold the company at the end of eighth grade and joined a robotics program. I realized that I connect with the entrepreneurial part of the group and that led me to raise funds for the program. During this program, I encountered many non-profit organizations that require help and many companies that want to help but don’t know how. Towards the end of my IDF service, I understood that I wanted my next business to tackle this challenge, but I didn’t have enough money to start. So instead I set up a company that helped build websites for people and companies within 24 hours. After six months we managed to raise funds for the new company so I brought in my cousin Gil Amsalem and we recruited our third partner Avi, as well as a development team that volunteered to work on the project.”

Vee currently has over 500 companies and organizations on its platform, among them eBay, Booking.com, Salesforce, and Columbia University. The platform is active in 10 different countries and logs in hundreds of new activities per week.

“My first presentation may have been ugly, but it worked and through it I connected with several funds thanks to my private investors,” added Piamenta. “We grew to a team of 40 employees, most of them recruited during the last quarter of 2021.”

Piamenta, who founded the company when she was 20, has been involved in charity and volunteering since her teenage years in Dimona, a small town in southern Israel. During those years she led a global non-profit project with millions of volunteers across 32 countries where she realized that traditional management tools were heavy, unscalable, and difficult to use to achieve her goals in community management.