Swipii Secures $2.4M in Journey to Bring Advanced Tech to Local Business
After closing over $2.4 million in the latest pre-scale-up round of funding, Swipii is looking to expand its incredible customer loyalty product for local businesses. Founded in 2015, the company is the first in the UK to utilise groundbreaking card linking technology for local businesses. With this advanced technology, an increasingly scalable product and a growing team of dedicated staff, 2019 is already looking like a wild ride for this startup fintech company. Recently, the company has doubled its product team and hired some heavy hitters from Google, Skyscanner and more. The most recent being Mark Logan, the ex-COO of Skyscanner who joined the founders on the board of directors. Not only that, but he also participated in this round of funding.
GLASGOW, Scotland, March 5, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Swipii, founded in late 2015 and based in Glasgow, is first in the UK to use ground-breaking card linking technology and truly focus on empowering local businesses. Users of their innovative app can download Swipii from Google Play or App Store and sign up by linking their everyday debit or credit card. Users then simply get rewarded every time they shop in a Swipii participating location featured in their app, getting 10 points for every £1 spent. It's super easy and the most convenient way to get rewarded without any hassle of remembering any information or carrying any extra cards. On the other side, Swipii gives businesses the power of data to know the spending habits of their customers better and help them to run automated, tailored marketing to increase retention and revenue.
The first version of Swipii swept the nation by empowering over 1,700 businesses and well over 1.1 million users with its customer loyalty and marketing tool. They were awarded the Best Customer Loyalty and Marketing Platform in the UK in 2016. Independent businesses saw up to a 1.5x increase in their revenue as a result of using the Swipii platform.
The new Swipii version is here and it's sleeker, smarter and ready to take off.
"At Swipii, we have worked hard to build a brand that associates itself with helping local businesses. With card linking technology we will be able to empower local businesses with more powerful actionable data without the need of any technical expertise." - Chitresh Sharma, co-founder and CEO
After successful beta testing in Glasgow, Swipii now focusses to scale the product across the UK, starting with an objective to reach a saturation point in the city where it was first developed. For this, the company took part in a pre-scaleup round of funding, raising $2.4 million (£1.9 million) in order to push the company expansion. With the recent funding, the company has ambitions of growth, looking to migrate original businesses and users to the new platform, as well as take the product to the rest of the population.
Recently, Swipii has taken it one step further and have onboarded hard hitters in Janet Balneaves from Skyscanner as the new Growth Director, and Mark Crabbie from Google to become Product Owner at Swipii. On top of this, they are joined by Mark Logan who has brought his experience to the board of directors, as the ex-COO of Skyscanner. He's shown his belief in this powerful startup by also participating in the pre-scaleup round of funding.
Following the latest round of funding, Swipii is heavily investing in staff and talent, doubling the product team and investing to continuously grow both the Product team and the Growth team to speed up delivery of features and improve the user experience. This involves creating a whole new onboarding process for new faces at Swipii, as co-founder and COO, Louis Schena, pointed out:
"The most noticeable change this year outside of the card linking technology for our users is our Swipii for Business brand and product. It is now fully self-service and free to setup from our website. This enables businesses to try before they buy and from Swipii to be infinitely more scalable than our previous support heavy model."
Small businesses don't have the same technology or funds as the likes of Tesco or Starbucks. Swipii helps them to create a loyalty program that increases footfall and improves customer retention. There is a strong focus on convenience, helping shoppers who are tired of multiple loyalty cards, rewards vouchers, QR codes and apps.
Simplicity is key. Whether it's for a business or a shopper, Swipii provides a tailored, exclusive new way of doing loyalty.
This latest round of funding was led by Par Equity, along with the Scottish Investment Bank, Green Shores Capital and follow up money from previous investors.
For more information, contact Swipii at [email protected] or give them a call on 0800 368 7416.
SOURCE Swipii
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