27. Bink

Founders: Lee Clarke and Greg Gormley
Founded: August 2014 (Launched October 2016)
Website: www.bink.com

In December last year, just two months after launch, London-based loyalty app Bink landed £2m in funding taking its total investment to £10m to date. If that isn’t an endorsement of this nascent start-up’s potential, then its growing customer base and client portfolio is.

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Lee Clarke and Greg Gormley, Bink is on a mission to disrupt the estimated $100bn global loyalty industry. Born out of the frustration of missed loyalty points, Bink enables consumers to digitally consolidate their existing plastic loyalty cards within one app, view all their points and balances in an aggregated screen and link them to their payment cards. The app is now nearing 100,000 downloads.

Unlike digital wallet companies, which require shoppers to present their smartphone and have a barcode scanned, Bink users simply have to shop with their Bink-registered payment card to receive all the necessary data and feed it back to the retailer. Additionally, if a user shops in a store where they are not yet a member of the loyalty scheme, the app offers the opportunity to join via a one click button.

It generates revenue through a cost per acquisition fee, when it adds a new consumer to a loyalty programme; a transaction fee for every time a user receives a reward, charging per coupon used and a license fee.

The company’s growing list of 20 major retail clients includes Arcadia Group, Morrisons, Pizza Express, River Island, Virgin Atlantic and Gap to name a few.

With a £25m Series A round set for July, Bink is aiming to secure a total of 50 core retail partners by the end of the year and has its sights set on expansion into the US, with the opening of a New York office later in 2017.

Should everything go to plan – and it looks highly likely – the company is on target to hit £6m in turnover just over a year after launch.