Giftz wins best company

Giftz Wins Most Fundable Companies® in the US by Leveraging Blockchain to Transform Consumer Rewards & Gift Cards

Giftz in December Issue of Entrepreneur Magazine – In Stores Now

Congratulations are extended to Giftz for being named one of the Most Fundable Companies® in the US by Pepperdine Graziadio & The Venture Network (featured in the December 2019 print issue of Entrepreneur Magazine). Giftz is a Draper Goren Holm portfolio company. 

The competition involved a multi-phase, due-diligence assessment over several months that evaluated variables that included: financial projections, market opportunity, intellectual property, and the strength of the management team. Performance levels across those categories were pooled together to produce a fundability score from which only fifteen winners were selected out of thousands of entries. More Info

Loyalty Rewards & Gift Card Tokenization

For consumers, managing redeemable company value is a mess. The Giftz platform tokenizes points, miles, and gift cards so they can be easily exchanged peer-to-peer or distributed as incentives and rewards across disparate merchant programs. Small amounts of value become stranded on gift cards while points and miles are illiquid.  Giftz is the first app where consumers can manage redeemable value, and trade, spend, or send that value as gifts – all from one place. 

Giftz Key Achievements:

  • Most Fundable Companies® Winner
  • Committed Seed Round (now extended)
  • Built blockchain rewards tokenizer for merchants
  • Built Prosumer Giftz Exchange & Wallets
  • Launching consumer-facing iOS and Android app Q1/Q2 2020
  • Provisional IP for geolocation and social posting features
  • Investments from notable High-Net-Worth Individuals and Funds
  • Built team with decades of experience in consumer rewards and technology-platform development
  • Signed advisors with deep backgrounds and networks in finance, rewards, media, and influencers

It’s the Right Time for Branded Currency Tokenization

Rewards programs are fragmented. The average consumer has about $200 worth of unused reward value sitting on over 29 different systems, most in small fractions below the redemption threshold. While 94% of consumers want to be able to exchange between rewards programs (according to an emarketer report), businesses didn’t have an incentive to allow for flexibility in redemption until 2018. 

Due to the 2018 changes in the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), American companies can no longer take a profit from points when they sell something that includes points contract liability… companies can only claim “actual” profits, so the company must wait until the points are “actually” redeemed.

Revenue recognition has been pushed to when a point is actually redeemed, creating new liability issues. Companies are now seeking options to widen point usage to expedite when they can take a profit. 

Prior to 2018, American companies were able to claim profits from past averaging of points NOT redeemed and apply that to profits… the new GAAP standards doesn’t allow companies to use past point redemption as a basis to claim profits from unused points anymore. Instead, companies have to use the actual calculations which means they have to wait until they are actually redeemed.

Giftz is uniquely positioned to remove this liability from company balance sheets by helping brands tokenize redeemable value while allowing customers to liquidate this value to a third-party wallet with one click of a button.

Consolidating points, miles, coupons, and gift cards into a single branded token also eliminates the need for multiple, costly systems and provides new ways for merchants to engage and incentivize customers along their omni-channel journey to a sale.

The Giftz Platform

Giftz has developed a value-tokenizer that allows merchants to quickly create branded tokens (not for speculation) that can only be used on the platform. This allows brands to relieve reward liability by converting some or all of the brand’s existing rewards into tradable, branded tokens on the Giftz platform.

These tokenized points would not be cryptocurrency. Instead, they would be considered blockchain tokens functioning similarly to how a subway token works. 

Through Giftz APIs, participating brands can then use these tokens to allow users to earn or redeem reward value both on and off the platform. Therefore, a company could reward users with value for “liking” a social media post or sponsoring a beach cleanup by air-dropping tokenized points to consumers-specific geographic area. Giftz further helps brands to be more socially and environmentally conscious, reducing contribution to the 75-million-pound footprint of plastic gift cards in landfills today. 

The Future of Consumer Rewards 

Launching in early 2020, Giftz consumer MVP for iOS and Android will create a social experience for consumers to buy, use, gift, or sell redeemable value. Gen Z consumers are ready for a tokenized solution. A recent KPMG study found that 82% of 18-24-year-olds are willing to use tokens as part of their loyalty programs, and would trust tokens from brands they already frequent. 

Every day new reports from esteemed firms like Gartner and Deloitte illustrate how blockchain solutions will have a transformational impact across retail (among other industries) over the next 5-10 years. We’re excited to be at the forefront of that change with Giftz and we encourage those interested in hearing more to reach out to John Paukulis, Giftz Founder and CEO on Linkedin.  

This article does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service by Rewards Media, Inc (Giftz, LLC or Giftz Exchange, LLC), or any other third party regardless of whether such security, product or service is referenced in this article.