Airtime Rewards has announced plans to expand its Manchester team through creation of at least 20 new roles to support its growth.
The mobile loyalty App, which invites customers to save money on phone bills, will create at least 20 engineering, product and customer service roles over the next 12 months to bolster its North West workforce.
The firm, with also has a sales and marketing office in London, uses its own transactional technology, together with Visa and Mastercard and mobile network operators, to incentivise and reward its members to shop at participating merchants.
Founded in 2017 by tech-entrepreneurs Adam Ward and Josh Graham, it offers mobile-phone savings to customers through shopping with its retail partners.
As part of its growth strategy, the business recently upscaled to a 4,000 sq ft office, and is supported with investments from Telefonica, as well as a £1m investment from NPIF – Maven Equity Finance, managed by Maven and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.
The firm reports that it is on track to surpass a million users, 100 retailer partners and to achieve turnover of £15m this year.
It also plans to announce premium accounts, personalisation, gamification, and open banking following development of the new features.
Ward, CEO of Airtime Rewards, said: “It gives us great pride to build the core of our team and business in our home city and Manchester’s emerging FinTech scene.”
James Darlington, Investment Manager, of Maven Capital Partners, added: “We are delighted with Airtime’s performance since our investment which has seen it grow from an early stage Fintech investment to a rising star of the Manchester tech community.
“We believe Airtime have developed an extremely scalable business model, underpinned with a unique technology mix, which is highly attractive. We look forward to working with management in continuing to build this very exciting business.”