Miles, a Redwood City, CA-based provider of a universal miles earning program, raised 12.5m in Series A funding.
The round, which brought total funding to $20m, was led by Scrum Ventures, with participation from TransLink Capital and Japan Airlines (as JAL Innovation Fund), TechNexus Venture Collaborative, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance (MS&AD), Synapse Partners and several other individual investors including Vikram Malhotra, Chairman of the Americas with McKenzie; Ashish Toshniwal, CEO of Y Media Labs; Viral Bajaria, Chief Technology Officer of 6Sense; Chenxi Wang, Managing Partner, Rain Capital; and Harris Barton, serial investor and former All-Pro Lineman for The San Francisco 49ers.
The company intends to use the funds to continue to invest in research and development, expand its marketplace, and grow its team to accelerate growth and deliver value to its partners and user base.
Led by CEO Jigar Shah, and Chief Business Officer Paresh Jain, Miles provides a universal rewards platform and app that rewards all forms of travel, offering personalized rewards from more than 200 brands. The system lets users earn rewards for their travel, across every mode of transportation, by commuting how they do every day. Whether by car (as a driver, passenger or rideshare), plane, train, subway, bus, boat, bicycle, or on foot, Miles awards a commute – with alternative or more sustainable modes of transportation rewarded even further. Users can view their miles earned per trip and receive personalized rewards with brands and small businesses across categories – redeemable either online or at a nearby store. Consumers can also participate in weekly and monthly activity challenges to unlock gift card rewards with retailers like Amazon, or donate their miles to raise money for charity.
In total, Miles now has more than 200 reward partners with other notable brands offering rewards on the platform including ButcherBox, Craftsy, Getaroom, Harry’s Razors, Home Chef, Noom, Restaurant.com, Shipt, Thrive Market, as well as gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Target and Walmart. In addition, users can donate their miles to the charity of their choice including Doctors Without Borders, Feeding America, The Pride Foundation, The National Breast Cancer Foundation or Chewy Gives Back. According to a written note, to date, users have earned 12 billion miles, redeemed 7 million rewards, realizing more than $50 million in savings.
FinSMEs
22/07/2021