Glasgow customer loyalty platform Swipii raises $2.5m

Swipii, which provides a loyalty, marketing and customer relationship management suite for small businesses, has raised $2.5m, with investors including LocalGlobe, Global Founders Capital and Kima Ventures.

Founded in Glasgow in 2014, Swipii aims to help small bricks and mortar retail businesses improve customer data collection and drive repeat visits. It does this by positioning a customer-facing iPad next to the point of sale to capture customer information. The customer is then given a loyalty card and can download the app, either of which can be used to gain discounts and rewards at any merchant signed up to the Swipii platform.

Merchants can use the platform to send out marketing emails, plus track real-time customer data, such as visit history and reward redemptions.

Chitresh Sharma, CEO and co-founder of Swipii, said: “Our vision is for Swipii to become the Salesforce.com of hyperlocal retail. We want to give the power of systems such as Tesco’s Clubcard to small and medium sized retail businesses at a price that delivers a better ROI and significantly increases revenue for their business.”

Swipii claims to have just over 1,000 merchants on board and hopes to use this new funding to increase to 4,500 merchants in 2017.

The company recently partnered with Cordia, Scotland’s largest provider of catering services, to encourage and reward school pupils to eat healthier options at lunchtime. Following a three-month pilot scheme at a secondary school in the Southside of Glasgow, all 30 secondary schools in Glasgow have Swipii on their premises.

Louis Schena, COO and co-founder of Swipii, said “We are all really excited to be launching Swipii across schools in Glasgow and delighted to be working alongside Cordia on this project. They are a great example of a catering provider showing innovation and keeping up to date with relevant technologies.”

The company has additional partnerships with six universities across the UK  and hopes to expand the number of customers using its services from 410,000 towards 2,000,000 within the next 12 months.