ST. LOUIS, MO (March 4, 2019) – Curate, the industry-leading software that provides event and procurement management tools for florists, is proud to announce its first capital raise from Cultivation Capital, in partnership with Twain Financial Partners.
Curate’s CEO, Ryan O’Neil founded the company in 2014 after watching his wife, the owner of local floral and event business, Twisted Willow, working with up to 18 different documents for a single event and knew that there must be a better way. So, Ryan set out to build an end-to-end product to organize and automate the most repetitive tasks in any event professional's life - from small owner-operators to procurement managers of multi-location floral companies.
O’Neil proudly shares that Curate’s origin is from $600 that he won at a St. Louis Hackathon and that prior to this investment, Curate had raised no capital. When O’Neil was asked why he decided to change course and take on venture capital he responded, “As a completely revenue-funded company, our team has had plenty of options to raise funds, and we always chose to wait. However, our conversations with Cultivation Capital showed us that they could help us scale from being the highest-rated wedding floral software to becoming a market leader in the broader event category." With the additional capital, the team plans on rapidly scaling their sales, marketing, and product teams.
Cultivation Capital’s General Partner, Cliff Holekamp, spoke highly of the investment in Curate saying, “We are delighted to lead this round for Curate. What Ryan and his team have accomplished thus far on such limited resources is truly remarkable. We are excited to join Curate as they help small business owners in the wedding and event industry save time and make more money by using Curate’s products.” To date, this makes the 7th investment from the Cultivation Capital and Twain Financial Partners partnership. The firms seek to invest up to $300,000 in technology startups from the St. Louis and greater Midwest regions.
About Curate
Curate is the industry-leading software for event professionals that provides proposal, costing, other management tools for event professionals. Curate is based In St. Louis, MO. Find more information at curate.co.
About Cultivation Capital
Cultivation Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that supports extraordinary entrepreneurs in technology and life sciences. Cultivation Capital has backed over 140 companies since the firm was founded in 2012, making it one of the most active venture capital firms in the country. Cultivation Capital helps businesses achieve pivotal milestones with the help of our general partners, investors, and other portfolio companies. For more information, please visit www.cultivationcapital.com.
About Twain Financial Partners
Twain Financial Partners is an investment management firm located in St. Louis, MO with more than $4 billion in assets under management within the public-private partnership sector. Twain specializes in C-PACE financing, state and federal historic tax credit investments, and state low-income housing tax credit investments.