The technology company Antavo is expanding into the APAC region
Female co-founded technology company Antavo’s expansion into APAC follows the Enterprise Loyalty Cloud platform’s closing of $15M AUD Series A funding.
Now, more than ever, customer retention is becoming a top priority for businesses as the world today faces a looming recession and acquiring new customers remains challenging.
Key industry reports have highlighted this shift, including Fortune Business Insights, which stated that “the loyalty management market is forecast to be worth $24 billion by 2029 due to growing consumer demand for personalized solutions”, while Antavo’s Global Customer Loyalty Report 2022 similarly found that 82% of companies plan to double loyalty over the next three years.
Co-founded by entrepreneur and former award-winning journalist Zsusza Kecsmar, Antavo focuses on rewarding customers for living in alignment with their interests. The platform enables brands to transition from the traditional transactional, financial-only rewards programs to programs that foster long-term loyalty and customer engagement beyond the purchase cycle. For example, an activewear and outdoor gear brand might give rewards points to customers when they complete hikes and climbs.
Unlocking the power of customer loyalty and retention
Antavo recently closed its $15mAUD Series A round led by Euroventures alongside Lead Ventures, iEurope and Innovation Nest and private investors including Zoltan Vardy, enabling the company to develop its best-in-class SaaS platform. The funding is set to enable expansion of Antavo’s global presence and further development of best-in-class no-code loyalty technology for businesses.
“Antavo experienced incredible growth last year, which along with the dynamic change of the loyalty program, led us to rebrand as the Enterprise Loyalty Cloud,” said Kecsmar. “This refreshed position better encompasses the company’s goals and the support of our investors in our Series A round means we can continue to develop a powerful, world-first SaaS loyalty product that encourages and nurtures lasting brand love through differentiation and unique lifestyle engagement.”
The new investment will also enable Antavo to continue to reinvest in its technology for greater omnichannel capabilities and superior integration with multiple apps and platforms, while expanding its global presence. In 2022, the company signed major global brand clients including BMW, KFC, Kathmandu and BrewDog, resulting in 3.2X year-on-year growth and a 3x increase in headcount.
Antavo’s expansion into the APAC region
Antavo has now expanded into APAC, appointing experienced business executive Caleb Gamble to lead regional growth. With leadership positions spanning Tyco Retail Solutions, Retailite and WingArc, Caleb spearheads Antavo’s growth in the APAC region. He also served for several years as an advisory board member of the Australian Loyalty Association.
“Across the APAC region, we are seeing a significant shift in the way customers want to interact with brands and forge more meaningful relationships. What attracted me to Antavo is that the solution opens up exciting new opportunities for brands to scale better, more personalized interactions that adds deeper value to the customer experience, Gamble said.
“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of opportunity in the region in recent years as brands look to unlock the value of customer data to accelerate growth. We’re excited to bring Antavo’s solution into the hands of more brands in the region, allowing them to put the power of customer data to work in more innovative ways.”
How Antavo is helping Rip Curl build community
Within the APAC region, one client already scaling its community engagement strategy is surfing retail giant Rip Curl, which has taken its membership program global and is leveraging Antavo to bring all its customer data into one streamlined community ecosystem.
“As old as surfing culture is, we’ve seen a real ‘renaissance’ since COVID-19 of more people getting back into the water. But what we realized was that there was no formal or informal community at play,” said Rip Curl’s CCO Michael Scott. “So we identified a pretty big opportunity for us to build the largest and most engaged surfing community in the world. This is what our membership program is designed to do – and thanks to Antavo, we can deliver more personalized messages at scale, doing away with traditional batch and blast messages.”
“The team at Antavo has been working with us to ensure we have the right platform on which to build and scale our membership program. We are thrilled that Antavo is expanding its presence in the APAC region as we invest in more innovative ways to ensure our retail brand remains future-proof as we continue to evolve our brand to engage, inspire, educate and entertain our community.”
A code-free platform that transforms the future of customer engagement
Antavo’s no-code self-service platform gives brands a new format that enables far more creativity and management without the need for IT resources. Drag-and-drop interfaces and visual editors facilitate quick and easy changes to provide users with next-generation loyalty programs with gamification, social interactions and lifestyle engagement.
About Antavo
Antavo is an Enterprise Loyalty Cloud, offering best-in-class technology to manage experiential, paid and lifestyle loyalty programs online, in-store or on mobile – connecting brands with their customers in a more impactful, embedded way.
Antavo’s code-free, API-centric platform empowers loyalty and marketing teams to run fully custom programs and manage them in-house, without IT assistance. The company invests 60% of its revenue in the product and issues quarterly product releases.
Antavo is a unique cloud provider of loyalty technology recognized by Forrester, Gartner, Loyalty360, and is the preferred choice for loyalty consultants, agencies and system integrators. Antavo’s global clients include BMW, KFC or Kathmandu and global businesses in aviation, pharma and fashion. For more information, visit antavo.com.
