Benjamin Capital Partners, based in Oulu and New York, has secured $5.5 million in seed funding from Play Ventures, F4 Fund, and other prominent investors, including Anton Gauffin, Shane Happach, and Ilkka Teppo. The company operates the Benjamin cash rewards app, which allows users to earn cash rewards, called Benjamin Money Moments, on various activities like purchases, mobile gaming, and viewing ads. The funding will be used to aggressively fuel growth, focusing on user acquisition and product development. This includes the imminent release of an enhanced version of the app and the hiring of Lon Otremba as the company’s first CEO, who aims to enable consumers to generate at least $100 a month using the app. Benjamin plans to compete with other players in the cashback arena by offering daily cashback earnings, gaming rewards, and social money features, aiming to create an ecosystem centered on Benjamin Money Moments.
Since coming out of beta in October, the Benjamin app already has over 300,000 installs and 195,000 monthly active users (MAUs). Many users are already earning over $100 per month; some are over $1,000 per month in earnings. Moreover, more than 50% of installs are staying as MAUs. Revenue growth has also been very strong, growing north of 40% month over month since October.
Benjamin announces a $5.5M seed round and welcomes a new CEO, Lon Otremba. The injection of funds will go towards aggressive user acquisition and funding product development. The raise coincides with the imminent release of an enhanced version of the app as well as the hiring of Benjamin’s first CEO. Lon Otremba, a media, marketing, and technology veteran, has joined the company. Most recently, Otremba was the CEO of pioneering native advertising tech platform, Bidtellect, whose growth he spearheaded through to acquisition last year by Simpli.fi. Otremba is a seasoned and versatile industry leader whose career hallmarks include successfully running AOL’s Interactive Marketing Group; being the founding President of Mail.com (exit via IPO and eventual sale to AT&T); and being a founding executive at CNET Networks (exit via IPO).
“We have a simple goal”, said Otremba. “To allow consumers to generate at least a Benjamin a month – $100 – using the Benjamin app.”
The Benjamin app allows consumers to generate cash rewards – called Benjamin Money Moments – on a broad range of everyday activities including purchases, mobile gaming, and viewing ads.
This versatility allows Benjamin to up the ante to compete against other established players in the cashback arena. Bilt Rewards, which recently raised $200 million with a multi-billion dollar valuation, is focused on cash rewards for paying rent or one’s mortgage. Another player, Upside, which previously generated a $165 mil. Series D round, is focused in generating cash back on consumer gas purchases for their cars.
“Our vision is for Benjamin to be the facilitator of a comprehensive cash rewards lifestyle across the full range of commercial brands and entities with which consumers interact on a daily basis,” said Erno Tauriainen, Founder of Benjamin Capital Partners, who is a 15-year veteran of the cash rewards space, with two previous exits. “The Benjamin wallet will be the initial catalyst for an entire ecosystem centered on ‘Benjamin Money Moments’, or ‘MoMo’s’ for short, for consumers as they go throughout the course of their days. They can use the app in the morning at their local Starbucks and get 2% cash back. And then when they are commuting on the train to their jobs, playing their favorite mobile games, they can earn money there too. This MoMo-based ecosystem represents a whole new paradigm.”
Gaming has emerged as Benjamin’s most robust area of growth since launch. Play and F4 are both leaders in gaming investment. Along with gaming, Tauriainen and Otremba, are focused on two other key pillars of opportunity for the newly enhanced Benjamin product. The first one is daily cashback earnings, which again generates rewards for consumers on all of their daily purchases from groceries to Netflix. In this age dominated by social media, the Benjamin team is also prioritizing the “Social Money” features on the app. This would include the ability to earn money for creating social posts.
As the ad industry struggles with how to maintain scale of accurate digital ad targeting and measurement in the face of signal loss precipitated by Google’s deprecation of third-party tracking cookies, brand marketers are focusing increasingly on harnessing and applying first-party, consented data. With Benjamin’s comprehensive, cross-vertical coverage, the company is poised to become a major partner with leading brands across the spectrum.
“Play Ventures is very excited to lead the seed round of Benjamin as they continue to build category-defining consumer reward products. With nearly half of the US population playing mobile games, and consumer credit card rewards reaching new heights every year, we believe that the intersection of consumer rewards and mobile games is a major emerging opportunity. We are excited to put our expertise in scaling gaming companies to work with the Benjamin team to help them seize the opportunity to redefine lifestyle products in the category”, said Harri Manninen, Founding Partner at Play Ventures.
“We at F4 Fund are thrilled to be investors and backers of Benjamin. The brilliance of their cashback app lies in its simplicity, effectiveness, and unique reach into gaming, which opens up new avenues for monetization and distribution of games,” said Joakim Achren, General Partner, F4 Fund. “The team at Benjamin has impressed us with their knowledge in this space and their skills in delivering an unparalleled solution. ”
Click to read more funding news.
