Three Engineers Who Rebuilt Giving: The Givelink Founding Team

Who Antonis, Panos, and Alexandros are — and how three Computer Engineering students from Patras ended up building a platform in San Francisco.

Givelink was not founded by people who came from philanthropy. It was founded by three engineers who came from technology, who looked at philanthropy from the outside, and who decided the problem was structural — not cultural, not motivational, not awareness-related. Structural. Visibility failure. And structural problems have engineering solutions. This is the story of who they are, how they met, and what they built.

Key Takeaways

• Three co-founders: Antonis Politis (CEO), Panos Kokmotos (COO), Alexandros Karagiannis (CTO).
• Met at the University of Patras, Greece — all three studied Computer Engineering.
• Founded Givelink while still students — launched in Greece, expanded to the U.S.
• Recognition: Forbes 30 Under 30, WEF Global Shapers, Pegasus Angel Accelerator (top 1%).
• The engineering insight: giving is a visibility problem, not a payment problem. Solve visibility with product.

Antonis Politis — CEO & Co-Founder

Antonis leads vision, strategy, and partnerships. He started Givelink while studying at the University of Patras — not as a class project, but as a response to a genuine frustration: watching Greek donors give to causes they believed in and then disappear, because the system showed them nothing.

He is the author of Givelink's manifesto — "Kindness has become a transaction. The only transaction where the one who pays never sees what they bought" — which captures the founding insight precisely.

Recognition: Forbes 30 Under 30 Greece (2024), Junior Achievement Best Student Startup (National Winners), Hult Prize European Finals (Top 6), WSA Young Innovators by the UN.

At Givelink, Antonis operates at the intersection of product philosophy and external relationships — shaping the platform's values and building the partnerships (Charity Navigator, Social Good Fund, supplier network) that give those values operational form.

Panos Kokmotos — COO & Co-Founder

Panos leads operations, business development, and the U.S. expansion. He is the team member who moved to San Francisco to lead the American chapter of the Givelink story — through the Pegasus Angel Accelerator, through the California nonprofit network, and into the Bay Area's tech and impact community.

His background is operational and global: engineering education at Patras, professional experience across Greece, Spain, and the United States, and a systems-thinking approach to building the infrastructure that makes Givelink work at scale.

Recognition: Forbes 30 Under 30, World Economic Forum Global Shaper at the San Francisco Hub.

At Givelink, Panos is the connector — between the team in Europe and the market in California, between the platform's mission and the partners who share it, between the founding vision and the daily operational decisions that make it real.

Alexandros Karagiannis — CTO & Co-Founder

Alexandros built Givelink. The platform architecture, the SmartPick algorithm, the onboarding system, the supplier integration, the delivery photo workflow, the dashboard — all of it starts with Alexandros.

He graduated in the top 1% of his Computer Engineering class at the University of Patras. His approach to building reflects that academic rigor: systems that are reliable, scalable, and designed to serve their purpose without unnecessary complexity.

At Givelink, Alexandros applies the same engineering principles to giving infrastructure that any serious engineering team applies to product: clear requirements (what does the donor need to see? what does the nonprofit need to do?), clean implementation, and measurable outcomes.

The SmartPick algorithm is the clearest expression of his contribution: a system that converts a cash input into an optimized product recommendation in real time, using live wishlist data. Simple in principle. Technically non-trivial. Exactly the kind of problem Alexandros likes.

Nikos Issaris — Full-Stack Developer, First Employee

Nikos joined as the team's first hire — a full-stack developer who has been building alongside Alexandros since the early days. His contribution is the platform feature-set that nonprofits and donors actually experience: the wishlist interface, the dashboard, the embedded button, the photo upload flow.

The founding moment

Three students at the University of Patras. Not a startup incubator project. Not a business school case study. A genuine shared frustration with a system they could see was broken — and a shared conviction that building a better one was possible.

The founding question was not "how do we raise more money for nonprofits?" It was: "why can't donors see what they gave?"

The engineering answer: because the system was built to process transactions, not to communicate impact. Fix the architecture. Build the visibility layer. Measure what happens.

What happened: donors gave 60% more often. 150,000+ lives impacted. 100,000+ items delivered. 100+ verified nonprofits. Forbes 30 Under 30. Pegasus Angel Accelerator. San Francisco.

The next chapter

The founding team is still together. The mission is the same. The scale is different.

California-first is the strategy. National expansion is the trajectory. Supplier-funded model is the destination. And the three engineers from Patras — now operating from San Francisco, Athens, and wherever the work is — are still asking the same question they started with: can we make giving feel as human as it was always supposed to be?

The platform is the answer. The photo is the proof.

Read the Givelink manifesto or reach out at contact@givelink.app.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who founded Givelink?

Antonis Politis (CEO), Panos Kokmotos (COO), and Alexandros Karagiannis (CTO) — three engineers who met at the University of Patras, Greece. Nikos Issaris is the first employee.

Where is the Givelink team based?

Operations are centered in the San Francisco Bay Area for the U.S. expansion, with team members across Europe.

What is the SmartPick algorithm?

A wishlist optimization algorithm built by Alexandros that converts a cash donation input into the optimal product mix from a nonprofit's active wishlist, prioritizing highest-urgency items.

How can I contact the Givelink founding team?

Reach out at contact@givelink.app for press, partnerships, speaking, or podcast inquiries.

Stay Human.

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Antonis Politis is CEO and Co-Founder of Givelink. He started the company at the University of Patras and is building it in San Francisco.