APIS/ January 13, 2022
Singapore, 13th January 2022 – Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners LLP, a UK-based asset manager that supports growth stage financial services and financial infrastructure businesses, has invested US$50 million in Giift, the global leader in loyalty program management and development. Apis Growth Fund II was the sole investor in the Series C round.
Founded in 2013 in Singapore, Giift has quickly become a leading provider of loyalty management solutions around the globe. Acting on the belief that traditional, in-house points and redemption programs were outdated, ineffective and ripe for disruption, the company has developed an end-to-end loyalty technology to reduce touch points and cover all the needs of point issuers, users, and merchants.
The Giift Loyalty Platform consists of five products:
- Giift Loyalty Business Management System is an end-to-end loyalty platform that can accommodate a wide range of loyalty capabilities from routine transactional rewards to specific, customized behavioral options.
- Giift Marketplace is a points and rewards redemption platform with extensive offerings from global brands and local businesses.
- Giift Engage is a user engagement platform enabling companies to connect with their customers through hyper-personalized digital offers and experiences.
- Giift Box is a merchant-funded offers platform designed for merchants and brands to create and share coupons and special offers throughout the Giift ecosystem to drive customer acquisition and loyalty.
- Giift Pay is a coalition rewards program for mobile wallets and payment processors enabling their merchant partners to issue rewards to customers.
Supported by the funding, Giift will expand its resources in APAC and Africa as it invests in regional sales and business development and build market share in North America and Europe. The company will also continue to innovate and invest in its proprietary loyalty technology and platform to ensure maintenance of its competitive technological advantage. In addition, as an ESGI-native investor, Apis Partners will be working to maximize the societal impact of the investment which supports electronic payment infrastructure across emerging regions, which is a key enabler of financial inclusion across these economies.
Giift CEO and Co-Founder, Laurent Xatart, said, “At Giift, we believe that a comprehensive loyalty program is a critical asset for companies in all industries and of all sizes. This investment by Apis Growth Fund II will dramatically help accelerate Giift’s growth in the coming years as we become the global standard of the loyalty and rewards industry. Our partnership with Apis will enable us to enhance our platform through innovation, deliver premium value to our clients, and grow our team around the world.”
Apis Partners Co-founder and Managing Partner Matteo Stefanel said: “We are delighted to announce our partnership with Giift and it has been a real pleasure working with Laurent and his talented team throughout the process. Giift has already shown great success, being active in over 50 countries, and we are very excited to help the company grow and develop even further.”
Apis Partners Co-founder and Managing Partner Udayan Goyal added: “As loyalty programs are becoming a critical component to business’ go-to-market strategies, this was the perfect time for us to invest in Giift, which we see as a market leader in this field. Giift’s strong track record speaks for itself, and we are sure that we will be able to celebrate more successes with the company in the coming months and years.”
Canaccord Genuity in New York acted as advisor to Giift on the transaction.
About Giift
Giift serves the multi-faceted loyalty industry across three main functions including Loyalty Issuance, Loyalty Exchange, and Loyalty Payment. Founded in 2013, today Giift manages 50k+ programs across 55+ countries and over 130 million users. The company is headquartered in Singapore and has offices in New York, London, Wuhan, San Francisco, Nairobi, Beijing, Mumbai, Dubai, Lagos, Jakarta, New Delhi, Doha, Dhaka, and Colombo.
About Apis Partners
The Apis Group (“Apis”) is an ESGI-native global private equity and venture capital asset manager that supports growth stage financial services and financial infrastructure businesses by providing them with catalytic growth equity capital. Collectively Apis, through its team of approximately 30 professionals with deep industry expertise, manages or advises on total committed capital from investors (including drawn and invested capital) of US$1.2 billion.
Including its headquarters in London, Apis has representation in seven countries across Europe, North, East and West Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Apis is highly conscious of the developmental impact that the provision of growth capital for financial services and financial infrastructure businesses in growth markets can achieve, and as such, financial inclusion is a core tenet of Apis’ approach and investment mandate. Apis became a signatory to the United Nations backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) upon inception of the firm in 2014.