Cardagin Networks, the creators of a mobile loyalty and advertising platform, announced today that it has raised a $4.25 million series A-1 round of funding. The round was led by private and angel investors from New York, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia. The startup raised a $1 million series A back in March of 2010, bringing total investment to $5.25 million. Cardagin will use its new infusion of capital to ramp up product development and hiring efforts.
The Virginia-based network created its proprietary mobile platform to allow small, local merchants and businesses to design, scale, and monetize their mobile loyalty platforms, while providing their users with quick access to rewards and exclusive promotions.
Just as Sundrop Mobile, a startup whose raise we wrote about in March, offers daily deal merchants the ability to capture data and encourage loyalty among its avid users, Cardagin offers businesses a self-service platform built to publish mobile ads in realtime to loyal consumers.
Cardagin and Sundrop both are trying to hit on the main deficiency of the Groupon model, in that local merchants are largely dissatisfied with the level of retention and repeat business they received from daily deal promotions. Thus, with Cardagin, local businesses can begin linking coupon distribution to coupon redemption through analytic data and a custom dashboard, allowing them to make smarter marketing decisions based on customer purchasing history.
Cardagin allows merchants to identify consumers in proximity via mobile GPS, serve them with ads in realtime on-site. And, for all those consumers interested in discounts, a big selling point for the startup’s platform is that, simply by signing up on its homepage, users can access a “virtual mall” populated by businesses in their vicinity offering mobile promotions and loyalty programs.
Rob Masri, Founder and CEO of Cardagin, said that the platform and mobile app were developed and tested in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the company is based, and launched officially to the public in January of this year. Since then, the startup has signed up nearly 1,000 businesses and, with this latest round of investment in its pocket, will begin rolling out the platform to cities across the U.S.
For more, visit Cardagin Networks at home here.