By Kristy Dorsey
Cashback app Swipii has opened its first-ever crowdfunding campaign as it prepares to extend its business network to fuel a “shop local” economic recovery from the Covid pandemic.
Based in Glasgow, Swipii is seeking to raise £750,000 via Crowdcube which will be used quadruple its existing network. Since its launch in 2018, Swipii has helped approximately 100 businesses, predominantly in Scotland, increase their customer engagement through personalised incentives.
The company is currently working with British BIDS, an advisory service to Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) throughout the UK, to roll out Swipii to hundreds more businesses as lockdown restrictions begin to ease.
READ MORE: £1 million of fresh funding as Swipii prepares for expansion into Edinburgh
The crowdfunding follows a £1 million cash injection last year by Par Equity, which was completed in the weeks before lockdown and was earmarked for a push by Swipii into Edinburgh. To date, the company has raised more than £3m from investors including Edinburgh-based Par Equity, LocalGlobe, Rocket Internet and Kima Ventures.
Louis Schena, co-founder and chief executive of Swipii, said local independent businesses are the backbone of the economy. However, the “unfortunate truth” is they are decades behind online businesses and big corporations when it comes to technology.
READ MORE: Glasgow-based retail loyalty card scheme raises £2m in funding
“Covid has widened this disadvantage and our mission is to level the playing field as markets open up,” he said. “This crowdfund will allow us to ramp up our expansion plans and give investors the opportunity to back local and become part of our growth journey.”
For every investment of £250 or more, Swipii will donate £5 to Social Bite to fund its mission of ending homelessness through social enterprise cafes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here