CashStar came into plenty of cash of its own last year. The Portland, Maine-based company, which allows top businesses to offer email-personalized gift cards to customers, shared on Thursday its 2013 revenues.
The company generated more than $500 million in gross merchant sales with a 92 percent growth year-over-year from 2012 to 2013.
CashStar added more than 70 new retail and restaurant brands, including Brookstone, Golfsmith, Office Depot, Dunkin’ Donuts, Landry’s, Caribou Coffee and Vans, in the last year. The company also inked deals with 25 new distribution partners, including Facebook and IDT.
To meet the demand of its ever-growing clientele, the company also made a big hiring push in 2013, resulting in the addition of 25 new employees and a secondary office in Portland. CashStar also welcomed two new executives: CEO and president Ben Kaplan, formerly the COO of Cartera Commerce, and VP of Product Beth Ford, who previously worked as a senior director of product management at Demandware.
So significant were the company’s strides internally and externally that CashStar was named by Inc. 500 as one of the fastest growing private companies in America.
"The rapid rise of mobile payments and omni-channel commerce are creating a huge market opportunity for CashStar and our innovative digital gifting solutions," Kaplan told BostInno via email. "Our strong growth reflects not only our clients' success, but also our success in transforming the gift card into a branded digital currency for omni-channel marketing."
CashStar had a strong 2013, its growth proof that not all of New England’s startup activity is taking place within the bounds of Boston.
