The FU Berlin startup will make its way to Silicon Valley later in the year.

Two staff members of elefunds, a startup from Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), will be heading to Silicon Valley in the second half of 2014 courtesy of the German Silicon Valley Accelerator. The startup managed to be one of only 16 selected companies getting this opportunity to network with Californian entrepreneurs, investors and journalists. All costs and admin will be taken care of by German Silicon Valley Accelerator, including visas and offices. 

The startup came out of FU Berlin’s Funpreneur competition in 2011, and was set up by Tim Wellmanns, Christoph Haas, David Hirsch, Ben Spiekermann, and Yannick Sonnenberg. Sonnenberg has since been selected for Forbes’s 2014 edition of its “30 under 30” list.

Elefunds – a portmanteau of “electronic fundraising” and a pun (“elefund” and “elephant” are homophones in German) – offers a plugin which can be integrated into online shops. The plugin allows customers to round up their purchases for charity. That money is collected by the respective online shop and forwarded to elefunds, which distributes it to the charity selected by the customer, such as Médécins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) or foodwatch.

The German Silicon Valley Accelerator supports German startups from ICT related sectors to enter the US market. It provides startups with hands-on mentoring and office space at its locations in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, as well as New York City. The accelerator’s goal is to facilitate transatlantic startups, and drive demand, innovation, research and development in Germany.