Just four months after its last multi-million dollar funder, a Durham-based bitcoin rewards startup is doubling up, adding another $10 million to its coffers.
“We’ve got a lot of really big initiatives in the pipeline,” said Lolli co-founder and CTO Matt Senter. “They take a lot of money.”
Lolli, he said, is in an arms race of sorts. New competitors emerge every day, offering their own take on retail rewards – Lolli's app allows users to earn free bitcoin or cash when shopping at select stores. But getting ahead requires engineers – and getting engineers requires cash, Senter said.
“It just takes a bigger team to do all of this simultaneously,” he said.
Senter has big ambitions. He sees Lolli becoming a “multi-billion dollar company.”
“This is crypto, first and foremost, probably the biggest thing since the internet, and we’ve got the easiest way to get people into it,” he said. “We’ve got a huge lead. We’ve got really aggressive growth targets.”
Including contractors, Lolli has a team of 30 today, with about half of the headcount located in Durham. That’s up from when it was just co-founders Senter and Alex Adelman three years ago at the company's inception. And Senter said the plan is to hire aggressively.
As it adds to its team, the firm is also planning to add to its roster of retail partners, which include brands such as Lowe’s Home Improvement and PopSugar. Each new deal leads to data that can be leveraged to secure the next retailer, he said.
The concept is simpler than the technology driving it, he explains. Retailers give Lolli commissions for leads – for getting people to their e-commerce sites. Then Lolli turns that commission into bitcoin and splits it with the customer.
“It’s a cash back model,” he said. “We are essentially generating leads to the merchant.”
Already, the firm has released a browser extension that directs customers to retailers’ websites. And more products are in the works.
Senter said to expect product releases in both the fourth quarter and early next year – though he’s keeping details close to the vest. He does say to expect an Android version of the IoS app the firm launched in March.
Senter won’t release revenue numbers, but says year-over-year “has been insane.”
“I think we hit a record month almost every month,” he said.
But he admits the competition is fierce – and getting fiercer as new rewards apps are being developed, hence the push for capital.
Senter said the company has been able to be selective about its investors, and has actually turned people away in each round. He won’t release financial details, but does say he and his co-founder continue to be the majority backers of the company.
Lolli has attracted big name investors before – and not just big when it comes to their status in the venture capital industry. Past rounds have attracted celebrities such as actor Ashton Kutcher.
But the latest infusion, led by Acrew Capital, is its biggest yet, raising the total to about $20 million.
The $10 million round included participation from Banana Capital, Up North Management and Animal Capital, which was founded by social media influencers Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson and Noah Beck. And, like previous rounds, individual influencers and entrepreneurs invested, including YouTuber Logan Paul, Chantel Jeffries, Lauren Rihimaki, Kenny Beecham and Baron Davis. Early backers, including Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, also participated, according to the company.
