Claim, a rewards app and social networking platform, has secured $4 million in a venture fundraising round led by Sequoia Capital. The startup’s objective is to make shopping enjoyable, rewarding, and sociable. The software started in January as an invite-only beta and is initially aimed at university and college students in Boston.
Users and their friends may utilize Claim to earn cash back, swap rewards, and even redeem them jointly. The platform is a social network with the goal of emphasizing real-world value and shared experiences above produced material and reposts.
In November 2021, CEO Sam Obletz and CTO Tap Stephenson created the company. The two met as roommates at Yale and came up with the concept for Claim after reuniting in business school at Harvard. Obletz and Stephenson began by considering what it meant to possess anything digital.
“We started Claim because we were really interested in what it meant to own something online,” Stephenson said in an interview with Eltrys. “We saw this in Web3 and in sports, which is in collectibles. “There have always been locations where you can buy anything online, but there has never been a standardized version of it. So we began to wonder: What would it mean to eliminate all barriers to truly owning anything online? And this, in turn, led to a claim.”
The two began by imagining a platform where you could receive real-world prizes that were tied to your credit card. They then determined that users should be able to share or swap their prizes with their friends. Obletz and Stephenson knew they were going on a social mechanism that does not exist extensively now as they developed these theories.
Claim provides customers with a new kind of value-based experience that is comparable to the concept of trading cards, but for brands. According to the business, it has converted consumer incentives into a multiplayer game by enabling consumers to share new experiences while saving money.
If you like a brand and your buddy has yet to discover it, you may give them a unique prize, such as a free acai bowl from your favorite coffee shop or a t-shirt from your favorite streetwear label. You may swap rewards, explore new restaurants, and gain status by spending at companies. Claim also has a weekly “drop” when users unwrap a new prize at the same time. Users have the option of redeeming the prize, gifting it, or trading it with others.
Although Claim wants to benefit consumers, the company is also interested in assisting marketers and companies in reaching new customers in ways that do not entail assaulting them with advertisements on Google, Instagram, and TikTok. Consumers discover companies on Claim via incentives from friends. When it comes to reaching new consumers, the firm feels that the opportunity to genuinely experience a product is more useful than an advertisement.
“We make it so much easier for marketers,” said Obletz. “We can find customers based on their shopping habits and the habits of their friends. “If they haven’t been before, we can offer them a prize for trying their brand for the first time, which is essential because we’re bringing in genuine new consumers, and we can show them how successful that incentive was based on expenditure. So it’s simply this ridiculously basic marketing technique that we’ve devised.”
The firm is presently working with a variety of retailers, including Fortune 500 corporations such as PepsiCo and smaller eateries such as Life Alive in Boston.
Claim’s early results have been encouraging, with one partner on its platform achieving 97% of their new client target in half the time projected and another acquiring consumers with a 35% repeat rate in 30 days.
Claim is now focusing on Gen Z as its whole user base since it thinks this demographic is interested in authenticity and is weary of advertising, particularly because it looks like every other post on social media these days is sponsored. The business intends to continue testing in Boston, where it already has over 10,000 customers, before expanding nationwide.
The extra financing will be used to employ fresh talent and build the company’s eight-person staff over the following year. Claim will also utilize the cash to invest in engineering testing and learning before expanding into other areas.
The seed financing comes on the heels of an unreported $2 million pre-seed round sponsored by Susa Ventures and Box Group. 6th Man Venture, Reflexive Capital, A* Capital, GSW Ventures, The Kraft Group, and others participated in Claim’s fundraising rounds.
