MailChimp launches $1,000,000 USD API Integration Fund

MailChimp has launched a fund which will invest back into the programming community, potentially create a lot of goodwill and publicity for them, and benefit their product directly with yet more features. In turn this should make it even more useful for their ever growing list of members.

MailChimp has launched a fund which will invest back into the programming community, potentially create a lot of goodwill and publicity for them, and benefit their product directly with yet more features. In turn this should make it even more useful for their ever growing list of members.

“We just announced our $1 million MailChimp Integration Fund. It’s sort of inspired by Ycombinator, except there’s no equity involved. We basically want to help small startups with small, paying projects. Projects that involve integrating their apps with the MailChimp API,” said Ben Chestnut, CEO of MailChimp.

MailChimp extends the invitation to anyone with an idea for integration – simply fill out this online application. Click here to view existing examples of such apps.

MailChimp is also a privately held company, which has been funded through the gritty efforts of its founders. Their core offer is basically an email marketing service that links up with many applications through its solid API.

In the words of co-founder and CEO Ben Chestnut:

“A few years ago I had to decide between hiring a sales guy or investing in MailChimp’s API by hiring a programmer. We went with the programmer and focused on making a solid, well documented API that was easy to integrate with. Making something more useful is the best way we’ve found to get and keep customers, so we created this integration fund to encourage entrepreneurs and startups out there to do the same.”

Today the company boasts more than 80,000 users. Their API has existing integrations with Facebook, Twitter, Picnik, Highrise, PayPal, Google Docs & Contacts, Eventbrite and plugins for WordPress, Expression Engine, Drupal and more.