We Charity, an online, events-planning platform, announced today that it has sold its headquarters for $36 million to G-Star Raw, a developer of luxury outdoor apparel brands. At the same time, the site also announced a significant purchase of some downtown Toronto buildings.
The sale of the We Charity Toronto headquarters, located at 30 Exchange Place, follows a steady series of recent business acquisitions by the company. Following a series of talks with various investors, including e-commerce veteran Michelle Wong, Nowhere else in Canada has more real estate on the market, The Globe and Mail reported.
This is also part of the most recent round of investors, for which we have a story coming later today.
We first met at The Washington Post’s office and gave Kickstarter a shot. We connected over a handshake deal to create an innovative fundraising platform for local causes — but the campaign blew up spectacularly and drove tens of thousands of people to download its iPhone app in only a few weeks. We raised $1.8 million in three days to create the popular app, People Can Change the World, which continues to run on Instagram and iTunes.
Most recently, we have collaborated with Etsy.com to launch a crowdfunding campaign in advance of the inaugural We Charity/We RendezVous tasting. We Charity is co-branding the Kickstarter “confusion” mode with the Etsy widget on the partner’s account page, and will discuss the project’s progress.
The Toronto properties represent more than $2 million in investments with We Charity. It acquired four buildings in 2010: Tripling their size, which brought in over 25 tenants, each with unique merchandizing themes. At least a dozen of these tenants will be with us for at least three years. We Charity is a 40 percent landlord, with tenants drawing over $500,000 in annual rent, about 60 percent of which remains with tenants who have rented to us since the beginning.