21 Mar Fetch rewards app turns first profit and prepares for ‘hypergrowth’
Fetch, the grocery rewards app dreamed up by a UW-Madison student and now used by millions of shoppers, has secured a $50 million loan to grow in other industries.
The Madison company behind the country’s most-used consumer rewards app has turned its first profit and secured a $50 million loan. Now, it’s preparing for a “next phase of hypergrowth.”
Fetch, which calls itself “America’s Rewards App,” was founded in 2013 by Wes Schroll and Tyler Kennedy, inspired by an idea Schroll had as a University of Wisconsin-Madison undergrad first learning to buy his own groceries. The idea: Make it easy for customers to get rewarded for their purchases, without having to cut coupons or sign up for loyalty programs.
In 2017 they launched an app in which shoppers scan receipts from partner businesses and earn points on their purchases. In 2021, the company gained “unicorn” status, a distinction reserved for privately held startups valued at $1 billion or more.
By prompting consumers to voluntarily share their buying data, the company offers an advertising inroad at a time when stricter data privacy rules have made it more difficult for companies to track consumers’ behavior across apps and target digital ads accordingly. Fetch calls that “one of the most significant challenges facing marketers today.”
The company, which bills itself as “America’s Rewards App,” says it has “sweeping visibility into what consumers buy, capturing more than $152 billion worth of transactions annually using cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.” Users have submitted more than 5 billion receipts and earned nearly $910 million in rewards, the company said.