Published: Feb 03, 2020
Focus:
NPIF Maven Equity Finance
Following another year of significant growth, reaching profitability and £3 million in revenue, Airtime Rewards have announced plans to expand and will create at least 20 roles to support its rapid growth journey. The mobile loyalty App, which invites customers to save money on phone bills simply by shopping either online or on the High Street, will create at least 20 engineering, product and customer service roles over the next 12 months to bolster its Manchester workforce.
Headquartered in Manchester, with a sales & marketing office in London, the award winning FinTech Company is known as a disruptor in the rewards and loyalty sector. Airtime Rewards uses its own pioneering transactional technology, together with Visa and Mastercard and major Mobile Network Operators, to incentivise and reward its members to shop at participating Merchants.
As part of its growth strategy, the business recently upscaled to a 4,000 sq ft office in the heart of Manchester. The business is supported with investments from Telefonica, as well as a £1 million boost from NPIF Maven Equity Finance.
Adam Ward, CEO of Airtime Rewards, said: “It gives us great pride to build the core of our business in our home city and Manchester’s emerging FinTech scene.
“We have strong targets for the year and we are on track to have over a million members, 100 retailer partners and to achieve turnover of £15 million this year. There’s also lots of exciting new features in progress for our members, including; premium accounts, personalisation, gamification, and open banking in the development.”
Airtime Rewards have integrated with all major mobile networks to develop a new digital reward currency unique to their business and the rewards industry. This includes; O2, EE, Three and Vodafone. This differentiator has proven hugely successful, and a real attraction for retail partners joining the programme.
James Darlington, Investment Manager, of Maven Capital Partners, said: “We are delighted with Airtime’s performance since our investment which has seen it grow from an early stage Fintech investment to a rising star of the Manchester tech community. Adam and Josh have done a fantastic job scaling the Business to date and have built a dynamic, creative and motivated team which we are confident will drive further success. We believe Airtime have developed an extremely scalable business model, underpinned with a unique technology mix, which is highly attractive. We look forward to working with management in continuing to build this very exciting business.”
To date over 500,000 members have joined the free Airtime Rewards App, spending over £20 million a month through the platform whilst saving an estimated £5 million in mobile phone bills. Retailer partners include; Waitrose & Partners, Topshop, PizzaExpress, Argos, Nike, Wilko, and Holland & Barrett, amongst others.
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
