Back in February, digital gifting platform CashStar raised $5 million in series B funding from Allen and Company and Passport Capital. Today, the startup is announcing that it has cashed in on yet another round of outside funding, with $12 million in new series C financing led by FTV Capital. The round also included participation from existing investors like Coupons.com President & CEO Steven Boal and Passport Capital. The series C financing brings the startup’s total investment to north of $21 million.
Operating among similar names like BlackHawk, First Data, Gift Tango, and Swag, CashStar’s value proposition is that gives big brands and retailers a SaaS, white-label solution to enable the easy implementation of digital gifting systems. CashStar’s value is also drawn from its network of more than 200 well-known brands, like Starbucks, Gap, Best Buy, Williams-Sonoma, Home Depot, etc., all of which are using the startup’s platform to drive sales through on-demand digital gifting and multichannel marketing and loyalty strategies.
CashStar also allows these retailers to choose from a variety of gift card deployment options, via eGift cards, Facebook, or mobile phones, to give their customers personalized and convenient ways to share their gifts, tools that have enabled CashStar’s partners to sell tens of millions of gift cards each year.
Consumers and businesses are always looking for more personal and less obnoxious ways to send digital gifts, and CashStar’s mobile and social gifting and incentives make it easy for companies to make personalized, location-based gift options available to their customers.
As such, CashStar plans to use its newest round of funding to strengthen its brand network and continue to educate retailers and brands on the possibilities inherent to digital gifting — a rapidly growing segment of the $90 billion plus gift card market.
As the company pursues its plans to build the market from plastic to digital, it is also looking for new ways to allow businesses to turn loyalty points and rewards into gift cards and other forms of digital incentives. The startup will be introducing a new app next year, for example, that will allow consumers to use their credit card reward points to buy digital gift cards at participating merchants.
The app will take advantage of location-based mobile functionality to give, say, a Bank of America customer walking down a local street in their hometown to instantly receive mobile alerts on which nearby stores will allow them to burn their rewards points.
CashStar represents a great way for brands to integrate a turnkey solution that will allow them to quickly increase their revenue from digital gifting and pump up their B2B and B2C marketing and engagement offerings, especially that much coveted customer loyalty.
For more, check out CashStar at home here.