Rayze app lands investment to connect volunteers, nonprofits

Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Carl Nassib dreamed of a different kind of social media app for years — one that celebrates positivity and community.

With Rayze, a new app that links people to each other and to nonprofits that appeal to their interests or are based where they live, he may have created it.

Now, it’s just a matter of getting people and nonprofits to use it. “When we scale, if we’re hanging around on a Saturday afternoon and we’ve got time to kill, we can get on our phones and within 10 seconds, we can find something in our neighborhood to do to give back,” Nassib said. “There’s gonna be opportunities galore.”

And after an investment of Series A funding and incubation support from Financial Finesse Ventures announced Monday, Rayze will launch programs to add users and nonprofits. Details of the investment were not released, though Financial Finesse Ventures said their typical investment ranges from $500,0000 to $1.5 million for a minority stake.

Liz Davidson, Financial Finesse Ventures CEO and founder, said Rayze ticked all the boxes her venture capital firm was looking for in an investment – positive social impact, strong business model and a CEO who can inspire people to work together.

“Carl is a force of nature,” Davidson said. “It’s gonna be really hard honestly to find other investments that can match this.”

Nassib, who made headlines last year when he became the first active NFL player to come out as gay, said the idea for Rayze has been with him since he volunteered with the Buccaneers at a juvenile delinquent center in Tampa in 2018.

“We visited with kids who were as young as 13 or 14 years old who were in jail cells -- a lot of them were there because they were just running away from a violent home environment,” he said. “These kids were in...