Richard Branson, PayPal Co-Founder, Yahoo Chairman Invest in Indiegogo

Indiegogo processes millions in payments each week

A quartet of business heavyweights, including Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin have led a new round of investment in Indiegogo, the popular crowdfunding service. Indiegogo would not disclose the size of the round, focusing instead on the credibility of investors such as Branson, Levchin, Yahoo chairman Maynard Webb and serial entrepreneur Megan Smith.

“It’s about who they are – their experience, advice and networks,” Rubin told TheWrap. Though he said they are “putting in real money,” when asked to specify he repeated, “It’s not about the money but who they are.”

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Indiegogo is  bringing on these savvy investors at a time of tremendous growth. Indiegogo raised $40 million in a Series B round in January, money that will fuel the operation of a service that is handling more than 700,000 campaigns at once, helping people raise millions of dollars each week and is operating in more than 70 countries.

Now it must tackle the challenges posed by that growth, such as maintaining an open platform at scale and marketing itself to new communities.

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Levchin, who co-founded PayPal and is on the board of Yelp, will advise the company on how it can make paying for campaigns easier. Rubin said Smith would help him foster a more collaborative and diverse workplace.

Indiegogo has 85 employees dispersed between offices in San Francisco and New York City.

“We wanted to surround ourselves with great operators,” Rubin said. “As we continue to face challenges, we want to have some advice and thoughts.”

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