Higher Ground Labs — Political Tech Accelerator
Summary
Higher Ground Labs (HGL) is a US progressive venture fund and political-tech ecosystem builder. It has invested in over 80 startups across five funds and deployed more than $50 million since 2017, and its annual Political Tech Landscape Report is the canonical yearly scan of the US progressive political-technology stack. HGL’s published tool-vote-share evidence (Mobilize +3.6%, Impactive +4% per 100 volunteers, Deck +3.5pp in 2020) is the rare quantitative case for relational-organising technology at scale.
Body
Higher Ground Labs describes itself as “a venture fund and ecosystem builder investing in technology for political progress. We invest in and support companies that advance political progress from pre-seed to exit.” [source: higher-ground-labs] The fund’s three stated functions are: investing early in political-technology companies (Fund), supporting founders through an accelerator and beyond (Support), and building the political-tech ecosystem by connecting users and creators of technology (Grow). [source: higher-ground-labs]
The published portfolio numbers are unusually large for the political-tech space: “We have invested in over 80 startups across five funds and deployed over $50 million since 2017.” [source: higher-ground-labs] Featured investments named on the home page include Grow Progress (message-testing platform — “ran 457 tests on 1,700+ ads for the presidential campaign in 2024, contributing to over 1 million interviews analyzed”), Social Currant (influencer engagement platform — “drove millions of views and hundreds of thousands of engagements across Gen Z-focused social platforms for the 2025 Abigail Spanberger for Governor campaign”), and Oath (political donor advising platform — “directed over $37 million and 300,000 donations to 750+ candidates in 2024, 67% of which to races decided by less than 5%”). [source: higher-ground-labs]
The most-cited piece of evidence HGL has published is its tool-vote-share analysis from the 2020 cycle: “Campaigns that used Mobilize in the 2020 cycle earned 3.6% more vote share than those that did not. Every 100 volunteers using Impactive resulted in 4% more vote share for campaigns in 2020. Campaigns in 2020 that used Deck performed 3.5 percentage points better than those that did not.” [source: higher-ground-labs] Mobilize, Impactive, and Deck are all HGL portfolio companies and the canonical relational-organising apps in the US progressive stack; the vote-share gap is the rare quantitative case that a relational-organising tool moves electoral outcomes, not just organising outputs.
HGL’s 2024 Political Tech Landscape Report (published May 2025) is the canonical yearly scan. It tracks developments across six categories: Media & Messaging, Data Analytics & Modeling, Research, Volunteer & Activist Mobilization and Voter Engagement, Fundraising, and Movement-Wide & Organizational Infrastructure. [source: higher-ground-labs] The 2024 report’s executive summary calls out five structural findings: (1) CRM instability and political targeting expose infrastructure risks (NGP VAN reliability issues, Republican attacks on Democratic-aligned infrastructure); (2) earned media struggled to match paid digital despite record spending; (3) voter-contact methods stagnated in effective engagement despite record outreach; (4) progressive data infrastructure demonstrated strength and resilience (cell match rates rose to 86%, DDoS attacks absorbed) despite integration friction; (5) campaign tech adoption remained inconsistent — budgets allocated too late, campaigns defaulted to familiar tactics over newer approaches. [source: higher-ground-labs]
The fund is US-specific in legal and political context (its portfolio is Democratic-aligned, and the tool-vote-share evidence is from US federal elections). Its structural findings, however, transfer to any electoral ecosystem where the same vendor lock-in, late-budget-allocation, and tool-vs-relationship failure modes recur.
Use it for
A reference for the canonical US progressive political-tech stack (Mobilize, Impactive, Deck, Reach, Action Network, NGP VAN, ActBlue, etc.); the source of the rare tool-vote-share evidence for relational-organising apps; the canonical yearly scan of US progressive political-tech developments.