Bailador invests $9.8 million into Rosterfy, the company that managed Superbowl volunteers

Have you ever been envious of the volunteers who get the best seats at events like the Superbowl or FIFA World Cup, while getting paid to be there? Well, behind the scenes, a technology company called Rosterfy is making it all possible with its innovative volunteer and workforce management software. So it’s no wonder that it is drawing investors’ interest.

Bailador Technology Investments (ASX: BTI), a technology expansion capital fund, has announced a $9.8 million investment in Rosterfy, alongside other sophisticated investors, as the Company continues its rapid growth trajectory.

Rosterfy is a scale-up company based in Australia, providing software solutions that help Not-for-Profit (NFP) organisations, government volunteering bodies, and mass-scale events manage their volunteer workforce. Imagine that you’re organising a large-scale event and need volunteers, Rosterfy is the middleman to help you arrange that! 

Its cloud-based platform allows organisations to efficiently recruit, screen, train, and schedule their volunteers, replacing manual processes with automation to better engage and retain the workforce. With customers in over 20 countries and managing over 1.5 million volunteers, Rosterfy has seen tremendous growth, with recurring revenue increasing by more than 100% year-on-year in 2022, as the NFP sector increasingly embraces digitisation.

Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Bailador, David Kirk, commented, “Having worked with multiple NFP organisations myself, I recognise the important role that volunteers play in enabling NFPs to deliver on their mission, as well as the challenge of being able to hire, schedule and retain those volunteers. 

“The Rosterfy team have developed a market-leading volunteer management solution that has found strong product-market fit, which is evident in their strong growth rates and the quality of the customers they have acquired.”

Transferring from event management to volunteer management, Rosterfy was founded in 2015 by Bennett Merriman, Shannan Gove, and Chris Grant, who firsthand experienced the challenges of managing volunteers while running an Events Management business. The impact of Rosterfy’s software has been felt at major global events, such as the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, 2023 Superbowl in Arizona, and the Commonwealth Games 2022, where the platform has been instrumental in managing large volunteer workforces. 

NFPs, like Lifeline Australia and the St Vincent de Paul Society, also rely on Rosterfy to recruit and manage their volunteers, enabling them to better achieve their missions. In the UK, the British Heart Foundation leverages Rosterfy to engage and manage their 38,000 volunteers across 730+ charity stores and fundraising events each year.

CEO and Co-Founder of Rosterfy, Bennett Merriman, said, “This investment from Bailador will allow us to capitalise on the strong product-market fit we are experiencing and accelerate our efforts in product innovation, international expansion and continuing to connect the global volunteer community. 

“We are excited to leverage Bailador’s experience in successfully scaling Australian-born SaaS businesses globally and welcome both David Kirk and Michael Hayes to the Rosterfy board. This is the start of the next exciting chapter of our growth and timely acknowledgement that our global team and platform are making a real impact.”

Bailador’s recent investment in Rosterfy comes on the heels of its $10 million follow-on investment in InstantScripts, a digital healthcare platform that provides convenient access to high-quality doctor care and routine prescription medication in Australia. 

The Company’s strong financial standing, with net cash of $120 million following H1 FY23, positions it well to take advantage of investment opportunities, and its investment in Rosterfy is expected to further fuel the Company’s growth.