Airtime Rewards is not the first tech-based rewards venture to interest Josh and Adam. The serial entrepreneurs were already beginning to shift reward programmes from the dated use of loyalty cards to a more advanced and seamless process. Both were behind the success of numerous retailer loyalty projects, such as for Chelsea FC, The Guardian, as well as the technology powering the hugely successful ‘Orange Wednesday’ scheme.

However, for Josh and Adam, Airtime Rewards shines as their most innovative tech-endeavour to date. With the rising cost of ownership and consumers increasing dependency on their smartphones, the pair wanted to allow consumers to earn rewards where it mattered the most. Using their combined network of mobile operators and retail contacts, along with an ability to design and apply card linking technology, Airtime Rewards provides a rewards service to customers to shop with their favourite retailers and enjoy their smartphones for less.

Airtime has agreements in place with all of the UK’s major mobile network operators; the company’s technology has been integrated into global payment schemes such as Visa and MasterCard. In addition, Telefonica is a strategic partner and an early investor in Airtime Rewards and has also participated in this latest investment round. Airtime’s proposition benefits all parties by providing a simple and tangible way for customers to earn rewards for purchases, while enabling retailers and mobile phone operators to capitalise on increased customer spend and frequency of visit.

There are several businesses that operate in the loyalty space but none of these offer a universal mobile digital currency as a reward offering. Most are simply based around a traditional loyalty card and points collection system of which have been improved via ‘wallet’ technology; however, these do not offer a unique digital mobile currency. In addition, forthcoming regulations including the Open Banking and PSD2 initiatives will enable Airtime to gain a greater understanding of customers’ behaviour, resulting in a greater return on investment for its retail partners, with only minimal feature changes, facilitating entry to significant new market opportunities both here and outside the UK.

Airtime will use the funding to expand the business by strengthening its sales and customer services functions, as well as implement further developments to its infrastructure and market-disruptive technology platform.

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