Digital gifting platform Swych has closed its Series A round with a “major strategic capital investment” from UAE Exchange Group. The amount of the investment was undisclosed.
“Swych’s global gifting technology and vision fits well with our strategy to foster purpose-based money transfers,” UAE Exchange Group CEO Promoth Manghat said. “As a group, we are always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with organizations that drive innovation, provide differential services and promote digital initiatives,” he added. “In Swych, we see a unique value proposition that checks all these boxes.”
Swych’s platform gives users the ability to send “swychable” digital gifts from their mobile device that are redeemable for electronic gift cards from more than 120 retail partners. Users can also upload their plastic gift cards to the Swych mobile app and checkout using their smartphone to scan the bar code at the register. They can also earn rewards points that can be used to buy “swychable” gift cards. Businesses can use the company’s GiftBot platform or its “Gifting-as-a-Service” APIs to produce their own customized digital gift cards.
UAE Exchange and Swych will work together to develop digital gifting services for international markets, with a U.S.-to-India service under consideration as an initial launch. Swych founder and CEO Deepak Jain underscored the opportunity of leveraging UAE’s international reach, saying it would “greatly accelerate Swych in its mission to become the leader in digital cross-border gifting services globally.” A money transfer, foreign exchange, and payments solutions provider, UAE Exchange has in excess of 200,000 agent locations in more than 160 countries and 15+ million customers worldwide. UAE Exchange was established in 1980 and is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Plano, Texas-based Swych won Best of Show for its demonstration of the Swych Mobile Gifting Platform at FinovateFall 2016. The mobile app is available for free at both the Apple App Store and Google Play.