Gloo Announces Strategic Investment in AI-Powered VisitorReach

Partnership enables church outreach startup to leverage the power of Gloo platform capabilities and channel while enhancing benefits for Gloo+ members

BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Gloo, the technology platform for the Christian faith ecosystem, announced a strategic investment in VisitorReach. The investment and resulting partnership will enable both organizations to accelerate their services to the local church and will provide churches with technology and services to reach, connect and engage with people in their communities.

"VisitorReach represents the next generation of church outreach," said Brad Hill, chief solutions officer at Gloo. "We especially love that it combines the latest trends in technology and marketing with solid pastoral experience that understands the unique needs of the local church. As VisitorReach prepares to scale to a new level, we're excited for the multiple ways that Gloo can support and accelerate its growth."

Founded in 2023, VisitorReach offers an artificial intelligence-powered service and app to deliver personalized ads to those in a local community, inviting them to a conversation with a church through one-on-one text message conversations. Its Digital Health Assessment offering has been used by more than 600 churches, providing a comprehensive checkup of a church's online presence and suggestions for improvement. VisitorReach's tools empower churches to personally engage with new visitors and people in their own congregations.

"This partnership with Gloo marks a defining moment in our mission to empower churches with transformative tools to reach their communities with excellence and purpose," said Marc Estes, president and CEO of VisitorReach. "By uniting the Gloo technology platform with VisitorReach's innovative outreach solutions, we can jointly equip churches across the nation to bring hope, healing and the message of Jesus to a world in desperate need."

The Gloo platform offers a variety of solutions to serve churches, including communications tools, digital ministry capabilities and social media resources. Plans are already underway to introduce a bundled offering of VisitorReach with the platform premium membership Gloo+. Details and timing of this bundled release are forthcoming.

"VisitorReach fills an important gap in how Gloo serves churches," said Hill. "We can now offer churches a full lifecycle solution for every phase of the visitor and congregant journey. The net result of the partnership will be that churches can enjoy a steady, predictable stream of new visitors, leverage modern digital marketing principles without a full-time staff, and have the tools to more effectively engage and retain their people for greater ministry impact."

As a Gloo Capital Partner, VisitorReach will retain its existing leadership team, operate as its own brand and continue business operations as usual. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Gloo is the technology platform connecting the Christian faith ecosystem. Gloo connects ministry leaders to resources, people, insights and funding so their people and communities flourish and their organizations thrive. Gloo enables trusted exchange between organizations and people, so they can collaborate with greater confidence. Gloo serves over 80,000 churches and over 1,000 resource partners. Gloo is based in Boulder, Colorado.

VisitorReach helps churches build meaningful connections with people through personalized communication tools. The platform delivers personalized ads to people in a community and invites them to a conversation with a pastor through 1:1 text conversations. Tools like quick replies, a conversational assistant and guided journeys make it easy for pastors to engage with new people and assist in ongoing assimilation efforts. By streamlining outreach and communication, VisitorReach empowers churches to focus on what matters most: reaching and caring for their community.

SOURCE Gloo