U.K. payment and loyalty app startup Yoyo Wallet is saving users time by letting them skip the line. This news comes thanks to a partnership with Preoday, a digital ordering and pre-payment technology company.
With the new integration of Preoday’s order ahead solution, Yoyo wallet users can pre-order their food and beverage at participating retailers using the Yoyo app. This move will help small and medium retailers compete with popular brands such as Starbucks and Wetherspoons that offer this option.
Yoyo CEO Michael Rolph explained that the company has democratized customer information, making the data available to small, local retailers. “Through our partnership with Preoday we can now do the same when it comes to offering the most enhanced personalised customer services to retailers and caterers, big or small,” he said. “By creating a frictionless payment, loyalty and order ahead experience, based on consumer identity and purchasing preferences, Yoyo is now acting as the engine of business growth for our partners.”
Yoyo was founded in 2013 and is now available at more than 70 universities, in 200+ workplace food service locations, and at major retailers including Caffè Nero, Planet Organic, Harris + Hoole, HOP Vietnamese, and Wrap it Up. The company processes more than 2 million transactions per month for its more than 800,000 users.
Yoyo started as a pilot project at Imperial College and recently demoed retailer-specific bank card loyalty at FinovateEurope 2018. The new solution leverages open banking to match card transactions with a retailer’s till transactions in real time to link a customer’s purchases with their card payment. It applies its loyalty engine to the matched purchases and rewards the customer as if they had paid using the Yoyo app.
The company has raised $30.3 million from Metro Group, Touchstone Innovations, Woodford, and Firestarter. Earlier this spring, Yoyo was named Best Mobile Payment Solution at the Merchant Payments Ecosystem Awards.