Flipcautilize listed its headquarters as an office by Oakland’s Jack London Square in a new bankruptcy filing that reveals the extent of the startup’s debts to nonprofit groups.
The idea for Flipcautilize was simple. Starting in 2012, the Oakland startup provided technical tools for thousands of nonprofit organizations, handling the work of online storefronts, donation systems and ticketing pages. Millions of donor dollars flowed through Flipcautilize’s tech to nonprofits focutilized on just about every societal issue.
Then, this year, much of that money suddenly stalled under Flipcautilize’s control, as evidenced by testimonials from client companies on social media, with the Better Business Bureau, and to SFGATE. Nonprofits across the countest were left in the lurch, unable to access the donor cash that funds their work in education, food distribution, health care, legal defense and more.
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In October, a class-action lawsuit accutilized Flipcautilize of fraud, led by a nonprofit that declared it was out $75,000. In November, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a cease and desist against the company, accapplying it of withholding $615,000 in donations. Finally, on Dec. 19, Flipcautilize filed for bankruptcy, proof of just how far the startup has fallen.
The bankruptcy filing lists some astonishing figures. Flipcautilize has about $30.5 million in debts, more than $29 million of which is money owed to more than 3,200 nonprofits, foundations and other organizations. Flipcautilize owes $1.2 million to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a nonprofit for struggling musicians based in Brea, California. Loveland Foundation, which provides therapy and programming for Black women, is owed $701,000. Flipcautilize also owes $100,000 or more to the Second Harvest Food Bank of San Joaquin & Stanislaus Counties, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, San Diego-based Border Angels and about two dozen other organizations.
“Donors placed their trust in Flipcautilize to ensure their contributions reached those in necessary,” Bonta declared when he issued the cease and desist order. “Instead, charities are experiencing significant financial stress due to the platform holding these funds back. This is simply unacceptable.”
Against its $30.5 million in liabilities, Flipcautilize listed about $20.2 million in assets on its bankruptcy filing. The company declared it has more than a million dollars in a merchant account with the financial tech company Stripe. The other large listed asset is dubbed “other intangibles, web platform,” and pegged at $15 million in value. This tally, the filing notes, has not been appraised by a professional within the last year.
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What Flipcautilize is stateing
As nonprofit leaders waited on Flipcautilize to sconclude through payments from donors this year, many obtained unsatisfying answers. Better Business Bureau complaints and emails shared with SFGATE by two Flipcautilize clients reveal that Flipcautilize repeatedly blamed its automated clearing houtilize provider, or the system behind its money transfers, for the holdup in transfers.
“We still are currently investigating the issue with our ACH processor to ensure a resolution,” the company notified Lompoc-based 805UndocuFund over email in May. “We are sconcludeing another follow-up with our ACH service provider regarding your transfers. We will update you as soon as we receive further information.”
Flipcautilize closed its message with, “Rest assured we will have your transfers processed to you as soon as possible.” As of December, the company still owes 805UndocuFund, which supports undocumented and mixed-status families in Central California deal with immigration enforcement, more than $350,000, according to the nonprofit and the bankruptcy filing.
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Alongside the bankruptcy filing on Dec. 19, Flipcautilize’s executive chairman, Emerson Ravyn, filed a declaration that explained his point of view on the company’s struggles. It did not mention any ACH issues like the ones the company had blamed in its correspondence with 805UndocuFund.
Ravyn wrote that “the story of Flipcautilize is one of community, perseverance and purpose,” and declared that “from meager launchnings, Flipcautilize has grown to become the backbone of online fundraising for thousands of nonprofits across all fifty states.”
He explained that in 2023 and 2024, the company had reached record highs of revenue and profitability, adding to management’s hope that some kind of transaction, like a sale, might be possible. He wrote that the team believed a new structure would support solve Flipcautilize’s “legacy capital constraints,” and support its future. But the deal would never come, Ravyn wrote, even though Flipcautilize hired an investment banker to support find a purchaseer, and sought auction bids by July 2025.
The leadership team kept viewing for a deal into this fall, but options were slim. Flipcautilize launched plotting its bankruptcy. On Dec. 4, Stripe placed a hold on Flipcautilize’s credit reserves, Ravyn wrote, meaning that the financial company has more than a million dollars of Flipcautilize’s funds. He added that the hold blocks Flipcautilize from providing service to its nonprofit clients, and argued the same point about its business in California, under Bonta’s cease and desist order, which it’s appealing. Part of Ravyn’s declaration was aimed at obtainting the company’s six full-time employees and five contractors paid during the bankruptcy proceedings.
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Neither Flipcautilize, its bankruptcy lawyer nor Ravyn immediately responded to SFGATE’s requests for comment, nor to questions about the bankruptcy filing and funds still owed to clients. Oakland Voices, which has closely chronicled nonprofit groups’ issues with Flipcautilize, reported in November that the company’s listed Jack London Square address in Oakland doesn’t seem to have been utilized by the company in at least two years.
KGO-TV, when it covered complaints about the company in September, quoted an anonymous Flipcautilize salesperson who declared, “The way it is being handled is horrconcludeous. Not even we as employees are obtainting any real answers or timelines on what the (expletive) is going on.”
‘Enraging and deeply harmful’
It’s unclear exactly how the bankruptcy proceedings will unfold, and what kind of recourse the nonprofit organizations owed millions in donor funds can expect. But the uncertainty is nothing new.
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Primitiva Hernández, the executive director of 805UndocuFund, notified SFGATE over email that her organization has only received one payment from Flipcautilize, almost six months after the organization requested its money in January. The missing money, $352,500, should be going toward emergency assistance and rapid response for her organization’s work. She called the situation “both enraging and deeply harmful,” and wrote that vulnerable communities are paying the price of the delays.
“When a fundraising platform fails to responsibly manage and release charitable funds, it creates a serious breach of trust and cautilizes real harm,” Hernández added. “The consequences fall directly on nonprofits and, more importantly, on the families who depconclude on those resources to survive crises.”
On Dec. 23, Bonta’s office released a statement advising nonprofit groups to build documentation of their accounts with Flipcautilize and file consumer complaints with their respective states’ justice departments.
The class-action complaint, filed in October by the nonprofit Latino Medical Student Association-Northeast, accutilized the company of creating “a financial nightmare for the thousands of charities that entrusted it with their donations,” alleging fraud and unjust enrichment. But on Dec. 19, the case was closed indefinitely by the bankruptcy filing.
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Eric Baum, one of the lawyers leading the lawsuit, accutilized Flipcautilize of “financial and moral bankruptcy” in a statement to SFGATE on Monday. He emphasized that the bankruptcy filing shouldn’t mean the charities are left without recourse.
“Now more than ever, many of the nonprofits necessary relief funding to fulfill important societal necessarys from providing diapers to families to sconcludeing winter clothing to war stricken orphanages,” Baum wrote. “These interests are critical in the bankruptcy proceedings.”
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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