Ibotta is changing the way companies market, by paying people to shop.
Ibotta, (I bought a), is a cashback mobile app for consumers, and an alternative marketing strategy for companies.
The company was started by current CEO, Bryan Leach, in 2012. Leach’s father was an entrepreneur and he grew up surrounded by the startup culture and working at his father’s software startup, Harbinger Corp.
“I had a front row seat to this company that grew from six employees in a storefront at the mall, to 1,400 different employees, and several different countries,” Leach said.
Despite that, Leach went into law school and moved to Colorado with his family. While flying back from a conference in Brazil, he realized that law wasn’t something he wanted to do for the next 20 years of his life. And then he saw a woman using her phone to take a picture of a receipt.
“I started to think about how you could build a new model for promotions, a new model for rewards, disrupt advertising and couponing paradigms, which have been around for a long time,” Leach said. “I ended up spending the next seven months secretly building this business plan.”
Ibotta was born. It started with groceries, but now the app currently has partnerships with over 1,500 consumer brands, and has saved millions of customers over $438 million in cash back.
The app is free. Users download it and make an account. Users can search for the retailers they already like to use and browse that way, or search by product category and browse deals across different retailers or they can simply search for what they are looking for.
There is also an “any brand” category that includes various rotating items that allow users to get cash back from any store on products like groceries. Users can also browse offers by stores they usually shop at such as Target or Walmart.
To fully access most offers, users will complete a short brand engagement task, which could include reading a recipe from Kraft Foods or answering a survey for L’Oréal. Offers will also vary. Some offers will offer a percentage back, while others will offer a set cash amount. Offers are also catered to each customer and their spending habits and not all of the offers require brand engagement.
Users can upload their receipts that include products currently on promotion on Ibotta. Users also have the option to find offers in the app and be transferred to where they could easily buy the product online.
They can attach a brand loyalty card with one of Ibotta’s partners such as Food Lion or Lucky’s Market for easier shopping.
Once a user has accumulated over $20 in cash back they can opt to receive the money through Venmo or PayPal or also as a gift card. Ibotta is able to remain free for consumers by charging the companies it features on the app a fee to promote their brand and products.
The app has received $98 million in funding to date from GGV Capital and several other investors and angels and has been downloaded over 23 million times. Looking forward, Leach says he looks to take the company public when it is ready.
“We are really proud,” Leach said. “In the course of growing this business, we are helping millions of people make decisions about what they buy and put on the dinner table. The earnings they receive on Ibotta translate into education, healthcare, and the most essential things in a person’s life.”
