# Parvenu

Raising More Money for Charity Through Artificial Intelligence

## Elevator pitch
We believe businesses have a responsibility to improve their communities. One way retailers do this is by inviting shoppers to support charitable causes at the checkout counter. We're building a better charity checkout platform using AI-based personalization. Our system asks the lady grabbing dog food to donate to the animal shelter, the man refilling medication to give to research for a cure. This personalized engagement boosts brands and differentiates the retailer as a business that cares.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/parvenu
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:24091
- Last updated: 2026-06-09T05:00:07Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-09T11:50:07Z

## Quick facts
- Our technology outperformed standard charity checkout by tripling the donation rate from 8% to 25% in beta testing across 5 stores.
- Team has two successful startup exits and a CEO with fundraising expertise.
- Partnerships with major FinTech players such as Verifone, Ingenico, First Data, and Worldpay.
- Positioned to be first to market in the U.S. after the business model was proven in Europe.
- Completed SEED SPOT's top-ranked incubator and received $100,000 of AWS credits to minimize upfront costs.
- Prior to Parvenu, our founder, Patrick, ranked among the top fundraisers in the nation for The Nature Conservancy and Save the Children.
- Patrick is the Amazon best-selling strategy author of Road of the King.
- Our technology is proprietary under a provisional patent.

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:17654: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## FAQ
1. **Can a retailer adopt Parvenu using the traditional yes/no if they don’t want to use pre-check?**
   - Yes, if a retailer doesn’t want to use Pre-Check they can choose to use a yes/no ask; however, Pre-Check reduces checkout times for retailers. Traditional yes/no asks are done on a separate screen that adds additional time to checkout, while Pre-Check combines the donation screen and payment screen into a single screen and shortens customer wait times.
2. **How long was the pre-check trial and how many customers did it use?**
   - Our test had 1 retail customer and used 5 chain locations. We did testing at 2 chain locations in January and February and after seeing initial success, we expanded into 3 additional chain locations for February and March. There were 740 paying customers.
3. **Over what period of time did Pennies raise the 17 million? Do they use a pre-check model?**
   - Thank you for your questions! Pennies raised $17 million over 8 years and they are continuously growing. They recently raised over half a million pounds in a single month in December 2017. They have not used Pre-Check, and we aim to build on their success with Pre-Check and AI-based personalization to make the causes displayed more relevant to the shopper.
4. **What's your exit plan?**
   - Hi Baron! Exit strategy is a very important question, and I'm excited to say that we have many more options available to us than the average startup company. This is because we operate at the intersection of so many industries: retail, nonprofit, big data, marketing, and FinTech. The path we have laid out is to use our seed funds to build, test, iterate, and deploy. We will scale quickly through distributors. Distributors will enable our platform to infiltrate many stores at a time, which ecl...
5. **Is above device designed and made by you ? Will it be installed at all places or is it just software ?**
   - The best part of Parvenu's platform is that it works with any point of sale system! There's no need for a retailer to replace their existing hardware and our software works with Verifone, Ingencio, Square, or any other POS system! We sell to retailers and our platform is incredibly scalable. When we get into a CVS, we get into all CVSs. Thanks for your question Arvind! I'd love to have you join our cause and become an investor in Parvenu today!

## Team
- Krista Conley (Business Development)
- Chad Kong (Technology Development)
- Patrick Hoban (Co-founder & CEO)
- Johnny Li (Co-founder & COO)

## Q&A
- Q: Hey, Just wondering the status of our investment. I invested $2k in 2/2019, but have not heard anything in a few years.
- Q: What ever happened with this company?
- Q: Has there been an update on the status of the company and where our investment stands (i.e. $397,320 invested by 226 investors)?
- Q: How does this make sense to someone who just want to invest for profit ? funmis@shaw.ca
- Q: Can you distinguish how much of your tested 8%-to-25% donation rate increase resulted from AI targeting of causes to consumers vs. from the Pre-Check UX?
- Q: Do you intend to pay a dividend?
  - A: Thank you so much for your investment Craig! I'm excited to have you as part of the team! As an early-stage tech startup, we plan to reinvest back into growth to work towards an exit with higher returns for the investors.
- Q: When is funding over.
  - A: Hi Justin, thanks for being interested in Parvenu! The round ends February 28. I'd love to talk to you about getting involved! My email is patrick@parvenunext.com. We should set up a call to get to know each other!
- Q: How transparent are the donations? I really like the concept but I would like to be able to check a QR-code or something on the receipt to track my donation. There are too many corporations more interested in lining their pockets. Facebook is a great example. I heard of someone who donated to Gary Sinise's charity for veterans through Facebook and that non-profit saw basically NONE of the proceeds. (Oh, did I mention that I think Facebook is the scum of the earth?)
  - A: Thanks for your question, Michael! Our platform emphasizes transparency for the donors. Our platform lists the Charity Navigator ranking directly on the display so that donors will know how reputable the charity is. Instead of saying only the nonprofits name, we also list the specific project we are raising money for and a progress bar so that donors know exactly where their money is going and how close they are to the target. For example, instead of saying "Would you like to donate to ASPCA? y/n" like current solutions, our platform says "We've raised $1500 of our $2000 goal to feed 200 dogs in Washington DC with the ASPCA. ASPCA has a 3 star ranking on Charity Navigator." This extra layer of transparency helps donors know that their money is going to the cause and that they aren't throwing it into a black hole. We are transparent about our transaction fee and the retailer doesn't get any part of the donation. I'd love to have you join our cause by becoming an investor in Parvenu!
- Q: Is above device designed and made by you ? Will it be installed at all places or is it just software ?
- Q: Is above device designed and made by you ? Will it be installed at all places or is it just software ?
  - A: The best part of Parvenu's platform is that it works with any point of sale system! There's no need for a retailer to replace their existing hardware and our software works with Verifone, Ingencio, Square, or any other POS system! We sell to retailers and our platform is incredibly scalable. When we get into a CVS, we get into all CVSs. Thanks for your question Arvind! I'd love to have you join our cause and become an investor in Parvenu today!
- Q: What's your exit plan?
  - A: Hi Baron! Exit strategy is a very important question, and I'm excited to say that we have many more options available to us than the average startup company. This is because we operate at the intersection of so many industries: retail, nonprofit, big data, marketing, and FinTech. The path we have laid out is to use our seed funds to build, test, iterate, and deploy. We will scale quickly through distributors. Distributors will enable our platform to infiltrate many stores at a time, which eclipses a more traditional door-to-door type sales rollout. We are targeting retail giants who can get us into multiple locations per deal. In addition, our roll-out will take place across all channels: in-store, online, and on mobile. After developing a wide-scale presence, we will be in prime condition to exit through a number of different routes. The NY-based crowdfund research firm Crowdability recently promoted our offering: https://www.crowdability.com/deals/parvenu As mentioned in this report, we already are partnering with FinTech players with market caps that exceed $2 billion. These top payment terminal companies like Verifone and Ingenico can easily acquire us as they incorporate our platform as a native feature of their hardware to boost their revenue. Data acquirers like First Data, with a $21 billion market cap, also provide an exit route due to valuable insights and analytics that our platform will provide. In addition, retailers are always looking for ways to gain a marketing and branding edge on their competition. With so many retail and grocery giants competing against one another, the exit opportunities are numerous. Walmart, Amazon, and Macy's, to name a few. Take a look at what the CEO of Macy's has to say about acquisitions: https://tinyurl.com/yddoy2ge In summary, we are uniquely positioned with viable exit opportunities across multiple sectors, and this affords us more opportunity than you'll see with most startups. Retail and FinTech in particular are all around us, and there is no shortage of opportunities. Of course, this is also not to rule out an IPO as a potential long-term exit as well. With a digital platform that operates wherever there are transactions, we have a business model that is inherently able to achieve a wide scale, and we may very well be positioned to take the company public.
- Q: Over what period of time did Pennies raise the 17 million? Do they use a pre-check model?
  - A: Thank you for your questions! Pennies raised $17 million over 8 years and they are continuously growing. They recently raised over half a million pounds in a single month in December 2017. They have not used Pre-Check, and we aim to build on their success with Pre-Check and AI-based personalization to make the causes displayed more relevant to the shopper.
- Q: How long was the pre-check trial and how many customers did it use?
  - A: Our test had 1 retail customer and used 5 chain locations. We did testing at 2 chain locations in January and February and after seeing initial success, we expanded into 3 additional chain locations for February and March. There were 740 paying customers.
- Q: Can a retailer adopt Parvenu using the traditional yes/no if they don’t want to use pre-check?
  - A: Yes, if a retailer doesn’t want to use Pre-Check they can choose to use a yes/no ask; however, Pre-Check reduces checkout times for retailers. Traditional yes/no asks are done on a separate screen that adds additional time to checkout, while Pre-Check combines the donation screen and payment screen into a single screen and shortens customer wait times.