Headquartered in San Diego, California, Classy was founded by CEO Scot Chisholm, Pat Walsh, and Marshall Peden in 2006, originally to host fundraising events that benefit charities.

Its software as a service products launched in 2011 and focus on peer-to-peer fundraising, crowdfunding, events, supporter management and marketing automation.

[1] Founder Scot Chisholm graduated from college with a degree in mechanical and industrial engineering and moved to San Diego the next day, eventually going to work for Booz Allen Hamilton.

The sign-off of Will Ferrell's character, Ron Burgundy, "You stay classy, San Diego", inspired the name for pub crawl and continued as the company name.

In 2011 Chisholm relaunched Classy as a technology company, with original co-founders Pat Walsh and Marshall Peden, and newly added software developer Peter Nystrom and designer Joe Callahan.