Dive Brief:

• The mobile loyalty program AppCard attracted $20 million in Series B financing from PLDT Capital, Founders Fund and other prominent tech investors. 
• AppCard sends its members personalized offers from chosen retailers and related suggestions; the more they use, the better the offers get. 
• The system is targeted to small-and medium-sized retailers, and identifies users with a dedicated swipe-card hardware system, phone number or smartphone. 

Dive Insight:

AppCard has attracted $20 million to build out the tech platform and sales infrastructure underlying its loyalty program for small to medium-sized retailers. Offering a familiar plastic loyalty card, the system sends offers from the user’s selected stores, and ups the ante by sending out more, better and related offers based on the ones used.

The platform features a dedicated hardware system and swipe card, and can also identify users by phone number or smartphone tap. AppCard collects data on member usage and preferences to further personalize offers, ultimately building repeat business, loyalty and customer value.

Loyalty programs are proven winners for generating business, but usually require substantial investment to build. As a result, few programs between the local sub shop’s punch card and the big chains’ bar-coded keychain tags succeed. AppCard may be able to tap that market—and offer superior mobile capabilities.