WeGift Closes £4 Million Investment as It Sets to Revolutionise Global Digital Rewards Industry

LONDON, June 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- WeGift, the digital rewards platform, has secured £4 million in Series A funding, led by Fred Destin at Stride.vc, who also joins the Board of Directors, and other high-profile investors including SAP.iO fund and Unilever Ventures. WeGift also announced new angel investors including James Hind, founder of Carwow and Eamon Jubbawy at Onfido.

This investment round will help WeGift deliver on its vision of creating the world's first real-time infrastructure for digital rewards and incentives. The funds will be used to further scale WeGift's operations, as well as to support the company's expansion to the US, and for further investment in its technology platform.

WeGift was founded in 2016 by Aron Alexander after he received a £5 paper voucher refund in the post and realised that businesses were failing to leverage digital rewards, incentives, and reimbursements. The corporate rewards and incentives industry will be worth almost $700 billion by 2024 and WeGift is on a mission to transform it. Using a secure, cloud-based, open API technology platform, businesses are able to automate sending digital value, on-demand and in real-time rather than using manual processes that are error prone and expensive.

"Employees and customers alike expect consumer-like experiences from businesses," SAP.iO Fund global Managing Director Ram Jambunathan said. "Being able to provide those experiences is a key driver of retention and satisfaction. But today, businesses rely largely on archaic, manual processes for rewards. WeGift can uniquely enable customers to provide appealing experiences from incentives to reimbursements, which is well-aligned with SAP's distinctive ability to leverage operational data and drive experience management."

Ian Lane at Unilever Ventures added: "Our fund seeks out the most transformative technologies that have a potential to significantly impact supply chains and customer experience. In WeGift we see a huge opportunity to leverage their technology across the consumer goods industry."

Notable current angel investors also participated in the round:

• Simon Franks, the Redbus Group
• Alex Chesterman, Founder of Zoopla
• Charlie Songhurst, seasoned UK/US investor

Founder and CEO Aron Alexander commented: "Historically businesses had to wait weeks to purchase and distribute digital rewards, using Excel spreadsheets. WeGift helps companies intelligently automate this process to power new acquisition and retention opportunities. We give them instant access to a huge choice of rewards and payouts, an ever-growing network of more than 500 brand partners, across 26 markets and 20 currencies, in real-time. We are disrupting a broken market on a global scale, and this investment, together with our partnerships with Unilever Ventures, SAP.iO Fund and Stride.vc, is an instrumental step forward in achieving our vision."

Nicole Dunn, Operations Director at Sodexo Engage, WeGift's customer, commented: "Businesses are increasingly focusing on the need to give their employees and customers better, more desirable and personalised rewards, and to do so efficiently. Through our partnership with WeGift, we are able to offer the widest range of eGifts to customers and staff as well as allowing recipients to access their rewards and discounts far more quickly. WeGift has direct partnerships with the world's biggest brands including Nike, and so is able to negotiate the best possible deals for us. It's a win-win for everyone."

About WeGift

Businesses from every walk of life use rewards to acquire, retain and thank customers but the current process is broken. Sending rewards, incentives and non-cash payouts is manual, expensive, time consuming and error prone. WeGift changes this. Operating in more than 26 countries, in 22 languages, 20 currencies, with over 500 brand partners, and hundreds of clients, like Coinbase, Sodexo, New Look and Halfords among others, WeGift's cloud-based, open API solutions allow businesses to transfer value to consumers, in real-time and globally. Established in 2016, WeGift is backed by leading entrepreneurs and investors.

SOURCE WeGift