Texting Platform Hustle Has New Owners: Its Employees

Political peer-to-peer texting pioneer Hustle has new owners: its employees.

The progressive mobile messaging platform announced on Tuesday that its employees have purchased the company from Social Capital, the venture capital firm run by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. The move gives each of Hustle’s employees a direct equity stake in the business and a say in its corporate governance.

The shift to an employee-owned model comes as private equity and venture capital firms have shown an increased interest in political businesses in recent years – a trend epitomized by the acquisition of Democratic data giant NGP VAN by London-based Apax Partners in 2021. Social Capital, likewise, acquired Hustle in 2020.

But that trend has also raised alarms among many on the left, who argue that venture capital interests inherently don’t align with the missions of liberal and progressive organizations. In an interview with Campaigns & Elections, Hustle CEO Jesse Hassinger said that the decision to buy the platform from Social Capital was driven by a desire to bring the company into alignment with its clients’ and employees’ values.

“Many people joined Hustle because of their values and their support for these causes,” Hassinger said. “To join this organization and to have misalignment between ownership and leadership and customers was problematic.”

Under the new ownership model, Hassinger said, the equity gap between company leadership and staff will shrink considerably; the spread between the most senior leader and the newest hire will narrow to less than 4-to-1. The idea, he said, is to give Hustle’s employees skin in the game. 

“We have a stake. We have ownership,” he said. “We determine our future – not folks in some distant boardroom that we haven’t met. There’s no daylight now between us and the customers we serve.” 

Hustle launched more than a decade ago, gaining prominence as one of the platforms behind Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) massive outreach and organizing operation during his 2016 presidential bid. During that race, the Text for Bernie team – made up of around 1,200 volunteers – used the platform to send personalized messages to supporters at a rapid clip. 

Now, the company is casting its shift to an employee ownership model as a return to its progressive roots.

Hustle isn’t alone in its pursuit of a mission-aligned business model. Other progressive groups have begun rethinking their reliance on platforms and technology owned by venture capital and private equity firms. 

Last year, The Movement Cooperative, a nonprofit that provides data and tech support to progressive groups, began soliciting proposals for and testing new CRMs in a push to adopt more “value-aligned” tech. TMC also announced a partnership earlier this year with nonprofit tech platform Action Network to provide a suite of organizing and fundraising tools to its members that “are responsive to movement needs.”

Speaking to C&E, Hassinger said that the new ownership model at Hustle effectively bucks the trend of companies seeking increasingly higher returns at all costs. 

“If you have investors who are funding that business, then that is a group of people who need to get a return on their investment, and that introduces conflicts with alignment,” Hassinger said. “We’re more closely aligning the service with the needs of customers.”