The funding will enable the expansion of Antavo’s global presence and further development of the best-in-class, no-code loyalty technology for enterprises.
Enterprise Loyalty Cloud platform, Antavo, has successfully closed its Series A round at €10M led by Euroventures alongside Lead Ventures, iEurope and Innovation Nest and private investors including Zoltan Vardy, empowering the company to develop its best-in-class SaaS platform.
The new investment will enable Antavo to continue reinvesting in its technology for greater omnichannel capabilities and superior integration with more apps and platforms, while expanding its global presence. In 2022, the company signed major global brand customers including BMW, KFC, Kathmandu and BrewDog, resulting in 3.2X year-on-year growth and a 3 fold increase in headcount.
Now more than ever, customer retention is becoming the top priority for businesses as the world today faces a looming recession and new customer acquisition remains challenging. Key industry reports have highlighted this shift including Fortune Business Insights, which stated that “the loyalty management market is forecast to be worth $24B by 2029 due to rising consumer demand for personalised solutions”, while similarly, Antavo’s Global Customer Loyalty Report 2022 found that 82% of businesses plan to double down on loyalty in the next three years.
With a focus on rewarding customers for living in accordance with their interests, for example, an activewear and outdoor equipment brand could issue reward points to customers when they complete hikes and climbs, Antavo is enabling a transition from the traditional, transactional, financial-only rewards programs towards programmes that fosters long-lasting loyalty and customer engagement outside of the buying cycle.
Zoltan Toth, Partner at Euroventures said: “We believe that current market trends of increasing customer acquisition cost, unlimited choice for consumers and the increasing difficulty to acquire relevant consumer data magnifies the importance of customer engagement and loyalty programs. Antavo has tremendous growth potential. We are excited to help the team to grab this opportunity and expand its services globally and meet the challenges of a growing organisation and client base.”
Rip Curl’s CCO Michael Scott commented, “At Rip Curl we have identified a pretty major opportunity for us to build the largest and most engaged surfing community in the world. This is what our membership program has been designed to do – and thanks to Antavo we can deliver more personalised messages at scale. We’re thrilled that Antavo is expanding its presence globally as we invest in more innovative ways to ensure our retail brand remains future-fit as we continue to evolve our brand to engage, inspire, educate and entertain our community.”
Attila Kecsmar, Co-Founder and CEO of Antavo said, “All enterprises today need more creative and direct ways to engage their customers beyond transactions to keep their market share, even if the spend is declining precipitously. In the post-pandemic world, loyalty programs are having a renaissance in providing this embedded brand love. Antavo understands this, as do our investors, and we are excited to receive their backing.
Zsuzsa Kecsmar, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Antavo added: “Antavo saw incredible growth last year, which, along with the dynamic loyalty program landscape change, brought us to a rebrand as Enterprise Loyalty Cloud. This refreshed position better encompasses the company’s goal and the support of our investors in our Series A round means we can continue to develop a powerful, world-first SaaS loyalty product that encourages and nurtures lasting brand love through differentiation and unique lifestyle engagement.”
Antavo’s no-code, self-serve platform provides brands with a new format that enables far more creativity and management without the need for IT resources. Drag-and-drop interfaces and visual editors, facilitate quick and easy changes to provide users with next generation loyalty programs featuring gamification, social interactions and lifestyle engagement.
About Antavo
Antavo is an Enterprise Loyalty Cloud, providing best-in-class technology to manage experience-based, paid, and lifestyle loyalty programs online, in-store, or on mobile – connecting brands to their customers in a more impactful, embedded way.
Antavo’s no-code, API-centric platform empowers loyalty and marketing teams to run fully custom programs and manage them internally, without IT help. The company invests 60% of its revenue into its product and issues quarterly product releases.
Antavo is a unique cloud, pure-play loyalty technology vendor recognized by Forrester, Gartner, Loyalty360, and is the preferred choice for loyalty consultants, agencies, and system integrators. Antavo’s global clients include BMW, KFC or Kathmandu and global businesses in air travel, pharma and fashion. For more information, visit antavo.com.
