SimpleCitizen Announces $5.8M Seed Funding

Today SimpleCitizen, the digital immigration and visa solution designed to streamline the immigraton process for people and companies, announced the close of $5.8 million in Seed Plus growth financing. This funding round was led by Kickstart Seed Fund with major global investors Pelion Ventures, Peterson Venture Partners, TSVC, Y Combinator, and AppleTree Capital. Additional minor investors include Kima Ventures, Comcast Ventures, LP, and Investo. This brings SimpleCitizen's total funding to over $6.3 Million to date.

"This funding allows us to expand the important work we're doing to help immigrants and their families navigate an overwhelmingly complex process and start to apply our technology to fulfill the needs of companies looking for a better experience around business visas, work permits and global immigration," said Sam Stoddard, CEO and co-founder of SimpleCitizen. "As the visa and immigration process continues to become more convoluted in the current climate, it's more imperative than ever that we continue to develop new and more efficient ways to work with our customers to streamline access to these important immigration benefits."

As their direct to customer visa and immigration solution continues to have a massive impact on the lives of the individuals using the service everyday, SimpleCitizen is working to expand their platform to streamline the employer-sponsored visa process for global enterprise companies. Specifically, this funding round is dedicated to accelerating progress on the corporate case management platform — enabling businesses to simplify their worker visa programs and reduce costs while improving the employee experience. Every year, millions of individuals, families, employees and employers struggle to navigate the complex and outdated government immigration systems around the world, not just in the United States. The only truly comprehensive solution on the market, SimpleCitizen takes applicants from signup to completion. Its software has empowered thousands of immigrants to successfully complete applications and has saved over $16 million in legal fees to date.

"I moved to the U.S. for schooling on a student F1 visa and remained on that status for almost 11 years," said George Charbadze, SimpleCitizen customer. "In 2017, I met and married my wife, a U.S. citizen. From there, we went about changing my immigration status. Because we were both students at the time, we couldn't afford the exorbitant costs associated with an immigration lawyer – enter SimpleCitizen. It was truly the best decision we've made. The application process was simple and straightforward, and the customer service exceptional. Despite U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) still giving me a hard time, SimpleCitizen was always there with a solution. As of August 2019, I am now a legal permanent resident all thanks to SimpleCitizen."

"We've been investors in and fans of SimpleCitizen since they launched the company in 2015," commented Curt Roberts, Partner at Kickstart Seed Fund. "This is a company and a team that are bringing simplicity and ease to one of the most stressful and challenging problems facing individuals, families and companies – that of moving from one country to another and being able to live, work, and fully participate in life in their new home."

About SimpleCitizen
Founded in 2014, SimpleCitizen is a digital immigration and visa solution designed to streamline the path to citizenship. We make immigration work better for people and companies by transforming manual and inefficient processes into modern, automated workflows; providing users with with smooth, cohesive experience and program manages with the information and data they need when they need it. Users can safely and accurately apply, submit, and stay on top of their immigration status from visa all the way to naturalization. For more information visit www.simplecitizen.com.

About Kickstart Seed Fund
Kickstart Seed Fund is an innovative investment vehicle that aligns the interests of the key constituents of the venture ecosystem- Universities, Entrepreneurs, Angel Investors, Industry Partners and Venture Capital. This unprecedented level of collaboration, network access and value-contribution from across the ecosystem makes Kickstart Seed Fund the ideal partner for Rocky Mountain tech start-ups.