Paris-based fintech startup Joko raises €1.6M funding to reinvent loyalty cards

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The fintech startup Joko carries out its first fundraising with top-tier investors like Partech, Axeleo Capital, Lafayette Plug and Play, and several angel investors from the sector to develop its simple and universal loyalty program integrated into credit or debit cards.

Joko invents a simple and universal loyalty program using credit cards

With most brands, it is necessary to have the loyalty card with you and to scan it when you pay. Already existing programs are not or only slightly customised, and the consumer accumulating points on each of his programs has little visibility on the benefits he gets. As a result of this disappointing experience, millennials are increasingly abandoning these historical programs.

Accumulate reward points!

Joko revolutionises the loyalty card by offering a seamless, customised and centralised customer experience. Thanks to the mobile application (available on both iOS and Android), the credit card becomes the loyalty card. After connecting the application to their bank through a secure interface, customers automatically accumulate reward points every time they use their usual credit card in dozens of big retailers such as McDonald’s, Uber, Starbucks, Zara and many more.

When paying, there is nothing to scan, nothing to say, nothing to do: the user is automatically notified after their purchase and can check their points in the application.

After a few months of beta, Joko has already been adopted by tens of thousands of people, with the user base doubling every month. Users have already earned tens of millions of points since the launch of the beta.

Xavier Starkloff, CEO and co-founder, explains:

Our ambition with Joko is to build a strong brand, a product used by millions of people that retailers reward on a daily basis, by putting technology at the service of the user experience.

 

Nicolas Salat-Baroux, co-founder of Joko, explains:

Our users are looking for a reward and loyalty experience that is simple, customised and gamified and that is what we have managed to create with Joko. It is thanks to this experience that we see a real impact on the frequency of purchases and the average basket of our users at the retailers available on the application. For example, with Monoprix, we have seen a 17% increase in expenses.

The fintech startup has already convinced several dozen partners, including leading retailers such as Printemps, Fnac and Franprix, as well as digital native brands like Birchbox, Heetch and Cityscoot, who have already trusted Joko to optimize their marketing expenses.

The technology developed by Joko was made possible by the Payment Services Directive No. 2 (PSD2), the new European regulation that gives back to consumers the power over their banking data. “Joko’s team has the ambition to meet new consumer expectations by relying on the development of new technologies now made possible by the PSD2, and with an extremely strict respect of the use of data,” explains Alison Imbert, Investment Director at Partech.

Thanks to the recent PSD2, consumers now have the possibility to give access to their banking data to third-party applications, through secure interfaces that banks are obliged to set up. Last year, Joko registered as a payment institution agent with the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), the institution backed by the Banque de France that ensures the security of banks’ customers. Joko is the first mobile application in Europe to use the PSD2 to revolutionize the loyalty experience, and plans to expand internationally by 2020.

Uses machine learning techniques

Using machine learning techniques, Joko has developed a transaction categorization and intelligent identification engine that is able to identify merchants with unprecedented accuracy. The funds raised will make it possible to recruit more developers and data scientists to join a team that already has, only one year after its creation, about fifteen people currently based at Station F, including former members of Criteo, Jumia (Rocket Internet) and Happn.

Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.

https://siliconcanals.com/news/cisco-to-acquire-french-iot-scaleup-sentryo-heres-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-merger/

 

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