Captain Cause

What Captain Cause does

Captain Cause, operating commercially as Dift since October 2024, is a Paris-based charitable-giving platform operated by RespUp SAS that intermediates donations between French companies, individual donors, and a curated catalog of 400+ verified associations of general interest. The platform exposes several interconnected products: Cagnottes solidaires (peer-to-peer fundraising pots), Challenges Dift (72-hour-to-two-week time-bound fundraising campaigns with optional corporate matching), Dift Cadeaux Solidaires / Campagnes Mécènes (pre-funded donation-gift programs in which companies distribute 'difts' for employees or customers to allocate to causes of their choice), and Dift pour la fidélisation (loyalty-point-to-donation conversion integrated with Comarch, Maxxing, and Splio via a no-code connector). Captain Cause also operates a fonds de dotation (endowment fund) that legally administers and disburses corporate donations to associations.

The underlying technology is a web-based SaaS platform hosted on AWS Paris and Heroku Dublin, with payment processing via Stripe (individual donations) and Mangopay (corporate campaigns and gift purchases). Recipients can route difts to any association in the verified catalog; unclaimed difts expire after six months and are distributed proportionally to selected causes. The platform produces automatic tax receipts (60% corporate deduction, 66% individual deduction in France) and supports campaign-level impact dashboards for enterprise clients.

The company monetizes through three transaction-based fee streams: 12% on corporate dift operations, 8% commission on Challenge-mode fundraising, and approximately 2% in banking fees on ongoing autonomous donations (covering Stripe processing). Pricing is pay-as-you-go with a €5 minimum unit; there are no disclosed subscription tiers. Go-to-market combines product-led growth (self-serve corporate onboarding) with enterprise field sales for larger CSR and loyalty deployments. Co-founded in October 2022 by Frédéric Mazzella (BlaBlaCar founder, President) and Georges Basdevant (CEO), the company has raised €3.5M in seed funding led by OneRagtime with participation from MAIF Impact, Daphni, AFI Ventures, and VNV Global, and currently operates with an 11-person team based in Paris.

Name

Captain Cause

Legal name

RespUp SAS

Website

https://captaincause.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Captain Cause, operating as Dift since October 2024, is a Paris-based charitable-giving platform that connects French companies, individual donors, and 400+ verified associations through pre-funded donation gifts, peer-to-peer fundraising pots, and time-bound fundraising challenges, monetizing via transaction-based fees on corporate and association flows.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Challenge Commission: For association fundraising challenges, Dift charges an 8% commission on the collected amount. This covers full support from challenge launch to closure, customizable collection pages, automatic tax receipt issuance, and sharing of association updates to donors.
2. Ongoing Donation Fees: After a challenge ends, associations can continue receiving donations and creating cagnottes autonomously. In this case, only 2% banking fees are charged (covering Stripe processing costs of €0.25 per donation + 1.7%).
3. Corporate Dift Operations: For company dift operations, 12% operating and fundraising fees are deducted directly from the dift budget. These fees cover the Captain Cause Endowment Fund's operations and ensure zero hidden costs and zero integration fees for beneficiary associations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Dift operates a web-based donation platform where companies purchase "difts" (donation gifts, minimum €5) to distribute to employees, customers, or event participants, who then choose which verified association receives the funds. The platform also enables individuals to create cagnottes solidaires (personal fundraisers), associations to run time-bound Challenges (72h to 2 weeks) with corporate matching, and integrates with loyalty point systems for seamless CSR engagement.

Product overview

Dift (formerly Captain Cause) operates a modular charitable giving platform consisting of several interconnected products. The core is the Dift platform, which enables individuals to create cagnottes solidaires (fundraising pots) and companies to distribute dons-cadeaux (gift donations). The Challenges product allows associations to run time-bound collective fundraising campaigns with corporate matching. For enterprises, Dift offers Campagnes Mécènes (corporate giving programs) and loyalty point integrations (Comarch, Maxxing, Splio). The legal entity is the Captain Cause fonds de dotation, which administers and distributes corporate donations. The company also publishes No Bullshit, an editorial content series. The platform primarily targets French associations, companies, and individuals, focusing on environmental and social causes.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Captain Cause (Fonds de dotation): The endowment fund that continues to administer corporate donations to associations under the original Captain Cause name.

Products and services

• Dift Platform A charitable giving web platform that enables individuals to create cagnottes solidaires (fundraising pots) for specific causes and companies to distribute difts (donation gift cards) to employees or customers, who choose which verified association receives the funds.
• Cagnottes solidaires

Quantifiable outcome

• 4x higher conversion rate for challenges vs traditional donation forms
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• StripecoreTechnology or IntegrationPayment service provider for direct donations on the platform. Handles payment processing for individual donors making contributions to associations.
• MangopaycoreTechnology or IntegrationPayment solution used for company Campaign Mecenes and for dift purchases between individuals. The Captain Cause Endowment Fund uses Mangopay to automatically distribute donations to associations.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• HelloAsso: France's largest free association fundraising platform; directly comparable as a donation infrastructure for French associations and a direct competitor for association onboarding and donor acquisition.
• Goodeed: French ad-supported donation platform that converts ad views into donations; competes with Dift for corporate cause-marketing budgets and French donor attention.
• microDon: French micro-donation and workplace-giving platform operating in the same corporate CSR / payroll-giving niche that Dift targets with its dift and Campagnes Mécènes products.
• iRaiser: European (France-headquartered) digital fundraising platform for nonprofits; directly competes for association CRM, donation pages, and donor-acquisition tooling in the same French/European market.
• Alvarum: French online fundraising and crowdfunding platform for associations and NGOs; competes head-to-head for association fundraising campaigns (cagnottes solidaires) and corporate giving programs.

Broad incumbents

• Benevity: Global enterprise CSR and corporate giving platform; comparable as a much larger incumbent serving the same corporate cause-spending budget category Dift targets with French SMEs and mid-market accounts.
• Goodworld: US-based donation-tech and cause-marketing platform providing checkout donations and corporate giving tools; broader geographic scope but overlapping product surface with Dift's dift and Campagnes Mécènes.
• GoFundMe: Global crowdfunding and personal-cause donation platform; overlapping personal-fundraising (cagnottes solidaires) use case, though without Dift's corporate-dift or French tax-incentive positioning.

Emerging players

• Raisely: Online fundraising platform for nonprofits with branded campaign pages; comparable technology surface to Dift's Challenges and customizable donation pages for association customers.
• Funraise: Nonprofit CRM and online fundraising platform targeting mid-market associations; comparable in serving association-side fundraising workflows and donor acquisition at a similar scale to Dift's association catalog.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CaptainCause

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors5 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Captain Cause