The Extraordinaries Take a Cool Million

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-05-07 08:54:00 UTC
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The Extraordinaries announced a new round of funding this week that brings the total amount the San Francisco startup has raised to about $1.1 million. While this news might barely register in the tech world, for the social enterprise space, it's important.

The Extraordinaries is a micro-action platform that helps companies, nonprofits and individuals crowdsource small tasks ranging from tagging photos to identifying playgrounds. Like Samasource and Kiva, The Extraordinaries are a web-driven social enterprise that had to make a decision between nonprofit and forprofit. While Kiva and Samasource decided to go the nonprofit route based on factors like legal complication or potential mission tension with forprofit investors, The Extraordinaries decided to build a for-profit social enterprise.

My general belief is that the legal and financial structure should always follow the mission, and many times that will still point to nonprofit status for social entrepreneurs. That said, I think the space between social enterprise and internet technology is so exciting that I'm thrilled to see companies make a real run at building a serious and successful for-profit social company.

The new round of funding just announced totaled out to $720,000 and brings to The Extraordinaries table a marquee set of investors. The venture arm of legendary investor and software entrepreneur Mitch Kapor led the round along with True Ventures, with folks like Fast Company founder Alan Webber and Internet prophet Esther Dyson participating.

The funding isn't just exciting for The Extraordinaries -- although I'd wager they might be the most excited about it. It's exciting because it demonstrates that its not only the entrepreneurs who are recognizing the opportunity to build big companies by connecting web innovation with social entrepreneurship, but marquee investors and thought leaders in the venture space, as well.

Congrats to The Extraordinaries and the new members of their family.

Photo credit: Extraordinaries co-founder Jacob Colker via technotheory

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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