ERN's core product, Looop, analyzes opt-in card transaction data to enable card issuers and participating merchants to deliver individually tailored e-coupons to customers' smartphones, with features such as geo-fenced targeting. The startup recently acquired two U.K. consultancies, Inspired Analytics and Elucidata, to strengthen its analytics capabilities and consulting arm; those transactions were structured with undisclosed fees and stock. As part of the deals, Jim Jeffrey becomes ERN's Analytics Director and James Baldwin becomes Managing Director of ERN's Analytical Consulting Division. ERN has not yet shipped a commercial product but says it is on the cusp of announcing its first commercial customer after trials with several household names. Financially, ERN announced an additional $1.0 million in seed funding from unnamed high-net-worth individuals, bringing total disclosed funding to $4.6 million. The company has highlighted the high costs of Big Data as it builds toward commercial rollout. ERN builds Looop, an analytics platform that analyses card transaction data (with customer opt-in) to enable banks/card issuers and merchants to create and push individualized e-coupon offers to customers’ smartphones. The platform segments offers by behavior, time and location and is self-learning based on consumer interactions. Looop also provides consumers with real-time card spending tracking to help budgeting and to serve as the channel for loyalty offers. ERN is not yet fully launched but says it has begun wider customer trials. The company is headquartered in London and maintains offices in Silicon Valley and Singapore, and currently employs 14 people with plans to expand headcount. Financially, ERN has been raising seed capital to fund platform development. ERN builds a scalable big-data platform that enables banks and merchants to analyse customer behaviour at micro and macro levels to create loyalty-based products and targeted offers. The platform is PCI and ISO 27001 compliant and is said to be capable of processing 100,000 transactions per second, hosted in secure Tier 4 data centres in the UK, US and Singapore. ERN also offers a consumer-facing smartphone app that lets users track credit and debit card spending in real time to help budgeting and to surface tailored offers. The company raised $2 million to continue development of its scalable, reliable and secure platform. Traction is early: ERN is working towards proof-of-concept trials with several high-street banks, acquirers and major UK retailers, with a launch planned for early 2013. The startup is UK-based and positions its product for both bank-partnered personalized offers and merchant-targeted loyalty campaigns.

Total raised

$5M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Aug 2013