Hustle Becomes an Employee-Owned Company

Hustle, a mobile messaging platform that offers peer-to-peer (P2P) texting for mission-driven organizations, announced that its employees have purchased the company from Social Capital, in a rare ownership transition that gives every Hustle employee a direct stake in the company. Coinciding with its 10th anniversary, Hustle employees now have full ownership of the company they built and an independent, collective vision for where it goes next.

For a decade, employees have joined Hustle to make an impact alongside the campaigns and organizations they serve, starting with the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and expanding to organizations like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Mississippi Votes, Hispanic Federation, NYC Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit, KQED and more. These organizations need trusted partners aligned with their missions, and now every Hustle employee has a financial stake in the outcomes of the campaigns and organizations they serve. The purchase is structured around an ownership model that deliberately closes the equity gap between leadership and staff. The spread between the most senior leader and the newest staffer is less than 4-to-1, ensuring every voice carries real weight and no single team member can steer the company in a direction the entire team wouldn’t follow.

“For 10 years, the Hustle team has worked side-by-side with some of the most impactful campaigns and organizations to strengthen our communities,” said Jesse Hassinger, CEO of Hustle. “This purchase embeds our mission-driven culture into our ownership structure. When a campaign wins, when a union turns out its members or when a nonprofit moves people to action, that’s what grows our business.”

Hustle: an All-in-One Mobile Communications Platform for P2P Texting, Broadcast, Video and Voice

Hustle launched in 2015 as the communications platform for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, pioneering P2P texting as a tool for voter engagement and civic dialogue. In the decade since, it has grown into a full mobile messaging platform serving hundreds of progressive campaigns, labor federations, advocacy groups, education institutions and brands across North America.

"Hustle has been instrumental in helping us connect with our members through years of organizing, outreach and mission-critical moments – from elections to legislation to moments of real crisis,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. "When Hurricane Helene hit Florida, Hustle gave us a way to check in with members in real time, through a channel they could actually access. That responsiveness goes beyond engagement. It builds trust and makes members feel like their union genuinely cares about them. We've never taken for granted a partner that shares our commitment to workers and communities, and knowing that commitment is now built into how they own and run their company means a great deal to us.”

The Hustle platform has expanded from its flagship P2P texting solution to include Broadcast for one-to-many messaging, Conversational Video for personalized video outreach, and a Dialer, replacing multiple vendors with a single solution built specifically for nimble organizations and campaigns.

Win The Future: Pay-As-You-Go Pricing for Progressive, Democratic Campaigns in 2026

The ownership transition comes as campaigns, labor organizations and nonprofits are actively building their communications infrastructure for the 2026 midterm cycle. With midterm campaigns ramping up and a 2028 presidential race on the horizon, Hustle is returning to its roots with the launch of “Win The Future” pricing – pay-as-you-go access to the full platform for Democratic, progressive and independent political campaigns through the 2026 election cycle.

Win The Future is designed to lower the barrier to entry for campaigns of every size, from major party committees to down-ballot candidates, giving every organization the tools to connect with voters and communities at scale. As bots and AI slop dominate political discourse, the organizations that show up as real people having real conversations are the ones to break through. Hustle has spent a decade building the technology to make those connections possible, and that’s what every employee now has a personal commitment to delivering.

Source: Hustle

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