- Specialization
- Not classified
- Business
- Software Applications
- Market
- Cross Industry
- Ecosystem
- Not classified
- Customers
- Nonprofits
More details
- Organization type
- Commercial Company
- Ecosystem
- Not classified
- Business
- Software Applications
- Specialization
- Not classified
- Market
- Cross Industry
- Customers
- Nonprofits
- Delivery models
- API, Hosted Software
- Revenue models
- Transaction Fees, Subscription, Usage Based
- Listing status
- Not classified
- Latest equity round
- Series A
- Reported funding amount
- Not classified
About
Chariot builds fintech infrastructure for donor-advised fund giving, including DAFpay, gift processing, and disbursements. It sells primarily to nonprofits, grantmakers, and philanthropic platforms, differentiating through secure DAF payment flows, unified workflows, and AI-powered gift processing.
Market
Chariot competes in charitable-fintech and nonprofit payments, spanning donor-advised-fund acceptance, offline gift processing, and grant-payment infrastructure. It positions DAFpay as a low-friction payment option embedded across 70+ fundraising platforms, while Gift Processing consolidates EFTs, checks, PayPal, and Benevity and uses AI to code and synchronize gifts. Compared with the narrower DAF Direct widget, Chariot differentiates through a broader end-to-end workflow covering gift reconciliation, digital lockbox processing, CRM/accounting exports, enterprise APIs, and grant disbursements.
U.S. tax-exempt nonprofits and grantmakers, especially gift-processing, development, advancement, and finance-operations teams managing DAF grants, EFTs, checks, PayPal, Benevity, and other offline or digital gifts. Chariot serves both smaller nonprofits and higher-volume enterprise organizations, offering no-upfront-cost access for standard use and tailored plans, custom implementation, and APIs for significant donation volume.
At a Glance
Problem
Chariot addresses the costly, fragmented infrastructure behind Donor Advised Fund (DAF) giving. DAF providers often use different processes to send grants to the same nonprofit, repeating diligence, address verification, and bank-account or routing-number collection. Nonprofits bear the operational burden by managing separate workflows for every DAF provider, making grant payments slow, time-consuming, and inefficient across a universe of roughly 1.5 million U.S. nonprofits. The clearest use case is DAF grant disbursement: enabling providers to send funds and complete gift details to verified nonprofit recipients through a common workflow.
Product / Service
Chariot is a fintech and payments platform for the DAF ecosystem, delivered through an open API and dashboard. Its products include DAFpay, which lets nonprofits accept DAF contributions through their donation forms; Gift Processing, which provides a unified platform for handling gifts; and Chariot Disbursements, which lets DAF providers send rapid, data-rich grants to validated organizations and users. Nonprofits can also receive payments by enhanced-security check when they are not yet on the network.
The platform creates a connected payment layer linking speed, structured gift data, and recipient identity. Approved digital payments settle instantly, while the same workflow can include attachments and verified recipient information. Chariot Deposit Accounts, provided through Column N.A., support Disbursements and Gift Processing, and nonprofits can access the service without paying to receive Disbursements or transfer funds externally once per week.
Market
Chariot competes in fintech payments infrastructure, nonprofit fundraising software, and DAF administration, with a particular focus on connecting grantmakers, gift processors, fundraisers, and nonprofit recipients. The evidence does not identify named direct competitors; instead, it positions Chariot as a shared payment network intended to work across DAF providers regardless of their underlying technology. Its company profile describes it as founded in 2022 and headquartered in New York, while LinkedIn lists 11–50 employees.
The company appears to have meaningful commercial and ecosystem traction rather than being demonstrably pre-revenue: its site says tens of thousands of nonprofits are already on Chariot, and its Disbursements network is designed to combine more than 60,000 nonprofits using DAFpay with recipients of six participating DAF partners. Chariot also advertises recognition including Best Inventions 2025 and Most Innovative Companies 2025. The available evidence does not disclose revenue, payment volume, or profitability, so its precise financial maturity cannot be determined.
Founders & Leadership
Funding History
Y Combinator
Maveron
Recent News
Chariot’s September product roundup, dated October 1, described new donation file uploads and activity logs, as well as Foundant DAFs going live in DAFpay. It also said grants from Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation would be received electronically in Chariot accounts.
Chariot announced the upcoming release of its 2026 DAF Fundraising Report, based on $26.1 billion in giving across 54 participating organizations.
TIME featured Chariot's DAFpay as a 2025 Best Invention, describing how it simplifies donor-advised-fund giving. The coverage says Blood Cancer United raised $3 million through DAFpay and that more than 100,000 nonprofits use the service.
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Get notified when they postBusiness Model
Chariot monetizes DAFpay through a standard 2.9% initiation fee per donation, paid by nonprofits. It also sells annual subscription plans with included DAFpay volume, charging monthly fees for excess volume and other usage-based charges.