Adored Raises

Adored Raises $2.3mm from Kepha Partners, Boston Seed Capital, Matrix Partners, Borealis Ventures, Blade, and Prominent Metro Boston Angels to Build iBeacon Loyalty Experience Platform

Manchester, NH (July 8, 2015) – Nearly two-thirds of retailers say their loyalty rewards program is the best way to connect with consumers, according to Forrester, yet more than half of all loyalty programs are not actively used. The reason: Loyalty points alone don’t influence consumer behavior. The only way to do that is to usher in the era of the loyalty experience.

Adored is leading the charge. The Manchester, New Hampshire-based mobile app startup utilizes iBeacon technology allowing brands to offer a tailored experience for each individual customer in a way that is easy for both the consumer and the merchant. Today the company announced it received a $2.3 million round of funding from some of Boston's most prominent investors, including Kepha Partners, Boston Seed Capital and Matrix Partners, to further accelerate its rapid adoption by both consumers and merchants in the northeast.

“Brand loyalty can’t be taken for granted,” said Cory von Wallenstein, CEO and co-founder of Adored. “It needs to be earned by offering each customer the best experience possible every time they interact with your brand.”

That ideal experience is going to be different for everybody. For example, a ski resort would make a different offer to an advanced skier than they would a beginner, while a restaurant would highlight different daily specials to a regular than they would to a suburban customer who only visits on Friday nights. This type of real-time, real-world experiential marketing has never before been possible.

With Adored, however, merchants, consumers and brands can create entirely new and mutually beneficial relationships. The app collects robust analytics and does all the segmentation and consumer behavior profiling in the background. As a result, brands are able to offer the content their consumers actually want. Customers get the VIP treatment they deserve thereby creating more engaged customers.

A more engaged customer is the goal of any business because it increases the:

Lifetime value of the customer
Spend per visit
Likelihood that the customer will become a repeat customer, which is huge because returning customers spend on average 67% more than first-time customers, according to Bain.
Engagement, thereby creating more brand advocates - an area ripe for opportunity given that 78% of consumers are not yet loyal to a particular brand, according to Nielsen.

“These days, making great beer just gets you a seat at the table,” said Peter Egelston, founder of Smuttynose Brewing Company. “To compete, we need to create great experiences for consumers and at every level of the distribution chain. That is why we use Adored to help build stronger relationships and more remarkable experiences.”
Adored allows locations, like restaurants, bars, ski resorts, hotels, etc., to increase the lifetime value of their customers. All a customer needs to do is enter one of these establishments and Adored is activated offering rewards, exclusive real-time content and cross promotions.

For brands, Adored gives them the opportunity to cut across the noise of social media and have a direct conversation with customers interested in their products and services, which is unlike any tool currently available.

One of Adored’s key differentiators is that unlike other iBeacon companies, while providing tremendous value for the vendors, Adored respects the consumer.

“iBeacons are a marketer’s dream but a consumer’s nightmare,” said von Wallenstein. “Consumers must be treated as first class citizens in both value and respect for their privacy. Since the app is entirely anonymous, with no consumer account creation required, consumer privacy is 100% preserved.”

But that anonymous data - from robust analytics to track foot traffic to peaks and valley's in activity and visits per week - is gold for vendors. Merchants get those analytics sent directly to their phone so they can be easily digested and used to make decisions that drive revenue and decrease costs.

"We started with Adored at two of our locations in February, and saw strong consumer adoption and engagement. Tailoring the loyalty experience in real-time based on a customer's anonymous behavior is the key differentiator for Adored, and we're now introducing the Adored loyalty experience to over 20 locations in the Common Man Family." - Erica Murphy, Director of Communications and Community at the Common Man Family

Adored, which has seven full-time employees, knows that just deploying beacons is only one side. The right strategy is the right combination of value to consumers, locations and brands scaled in proportion from a starting point of high density (locale by locale).

They have validated this approach in the Northeast where they have launched in four metropolitan areas and been downloaded by more than 10,000 consumers. Vendors who use the app in more than 60 locations are already seeing extraordinary results, like Cafe la Reine in Manchester, which has seen a 20% increase in visits per week.

“Our customers really love Adored,” said Alex Puglisi, owner of Cafe la Reine. “...Overall my relationship with my customers has gotten better from using Adored because we can engage in new and exciting ways and they can be more attune with what is happening at the cafe and the different offers they can get.”

This new funding round, which will be used to expand the Adored product and go to market teams, includes investment from Kepha Partners, Boston Seed Capital, Matrix Partners and Borealis Ventures as well as prominent metro Boston angel investors:
Paul English and Bill O’Donnell from Blade, leading the charge on building great consumer-facing companies in Boston
Jeremy Hitchcock, Kyle York, Matt Larson, Josh Delisle, and Gray Chynoweth, all past or present executives at Dyn in Manchester, NH, where Adored CEO Cory von Wallenstein was formerly CTO
Wayne Chang, Ron Martin, Laura Fitton, Joe Caruso, Michael Skok, John Pearce, all prominent figures in the metro Boston ecosystem

"There are dozens if not hundreds of companies trying to do something similar - because it is such a great idea - but the reason we're backing Adored is that Cory is assembling the team that is actually going to make this work,” said Paul English, CEO of Blade, and co-founder of Kayak.com. “We're very excited about what they have done in Manchester and we know this is going to work in other places."

For more information on Adored or to download the app, visit www.adored.com.

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