Democracy Live President Bryan Finney at a U.N. presentation in NYC. (Democracy Live Photo)

Nov. 6 was a big day for Seattle startup Democracy Live. While the company was busy deploying cloud-based ballots and election guides to millions of Americans, it also closed a $4.5 million funding round.

Joe Brotherton Investments, a group of angel investors who focus on “businesses with a purpose” led the round, according to Democracy Live President Bryan Finney. Brotherton said that no venture capital firms or other investment funds participated in the round.

Democracy Live began using the new funds during the 2018 election cycle and will continue to grow its OmniBallot platform with the fresh cash. OmniBallot is cloud software used by election officials to provide ballots to military service people overseas and Americans with disabilities. It has been used in more than 900 elections to date and is the most popular online balloting technology in the U.S., according to Finney.

Democracy Live also has a direct-to-voter product called LiveBallot. The app creates custom ballot guides for voters before they head to the polls.

The new funding allowed Democracy Live to develop a ballot guide for Amazon’s voice-controlled operating system, Alexa in time for Election Day.

“The funding has allowed is to focus on deploying a highly secure, certified balloting platform used by the military, voters living abroad and the over 30 million voters with disabilities in the U.S,” Finney said in an email. “We expect over the coming years, each of the 200 million voters in the U.S. we be able to access our ‘OmniBallot’ voting technology via the cloud, or a polling place tablet.”

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.