Innovative fintech player to integrate emerging augmented reality in the next stage of its mission to revolutionize and disrupt the fast-growing consumer cash rewards arena.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. and OULU, Finland, Sept. 19, 2024 -- Benjamin Capital Partners announced today the acquisition of New Thing Co., an Austin, TX-based leader in creating extraordinary customer experiences on behalf of brand marketers, featuring its proprietary augmented reality rewards tool and technology. This tool will be integrated into the fast-growing Benjamin app that allows consumers to generate cash rewards - called Benjamin Money Moments - on a broad range of everyday activities including purchases, mobile gaming, and viewing ads.
Benjamin Capital Partners acquires AR firm New Thing Co. to boost money moments
As a key element of the acquisition, New Thing co-founders Aubrey Johnson, CEO, and Jason Bender, CTO, will assume leadership roles in product development and engineering as EVP Product Strategy and EVP Technology, respectively. Both will be reporting into Erno Tauriainen, Founder and Chief Product Officer.
"I'm pleased and excited to announce our acquisition of New Thing Co.," said Tauriainen, who is a 15-year veteran of the cash rewards space, with two previous exits."By bringing Jason and Aubrey on board, we're not only adding top-tier talent with unparalleled experience in cash-back and user engagement, but we're also gaining cutting-edge AR technology that will revolutionize how consumers interact with brands, merchants, and games."
Johnson and Bender are renowned for being early and key members of the Dosh team, a leading cash-back platform that was acquired by Cardlytics for $275M.
"We are honored and thrilled to join the Benjamin team as they continue to have incredible success in the consumer rewards space," said Johnson. "At Dosh, we built a premier cash rewards engine whose success was a function of creating a world-class user experience, supported by sophisticated technology. We are eager to apply this expertise to this company's mission to put one or more Benjamins in every user's wallet every single month."
This acquisition coincides with a $13 million capital raise, including both debt and equity, from existing investors Play Ventures and Big Bets VC. This fundraising was orchestrated by respected industry veteran Jordan Rohan, who joined Benjamin over the summer as its Chief Financial Officer.
"We are delighted to have the continued support of our visionary investors. The financing has enabled Benjamin to scale its user base past 900,000 monthly active users," said Rohan, "This capital will also drive our expansion into exciting new verticals including commerce, payments, advertising and more."
Since coming out of beta in October 2023, the Benjamin app already has over 1 million downloads. Revenue growth has also been very robust and is approaching $4 million MRR in September.
"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 from groceries to gas to going out to eat." said Tauriainen. "The Benjamin wallet will be the catalyst for a series of 'Benjamin Money Moments' for consumers as they go throughout the course of their days."
About Benjamin Capital Partners
Benjamin Capital Partners is the holding company for the Benjamin App, a new cash-rewards platform for consumers, merchants and gamers to earn cash, called Benjamin Money Moments, by completing daily tasks, playing mobile games, viewing content and ads, and making everyday card purchases with cash back. Founded by industry pioneer Erno Tauriainen, and led by digital industry veteran Lon Otremba, Benjamin looks to innovate a number of massive industries, including cashback, gaming, and digital advertising.
About New Thing Co.
New Thing is an Augmented Reality Rewards utility that provides marketers and advertisers the power to easily bring engaging AR and rewards to their marketing and advertising campaigns.
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