Lux Rewards acquired by Enigmatic Smile at “eight-figure valuation”
Lux Rewards, a UK-based loyalty platform enabling businesses to offer card-linked rewards, has been acquired by customer rewards technology provider Enigmatic Smile at an “eight-figure valuation”, according to founder and CEO James Courtney.
Lux Rewards acquired by Enigmatic Smile for an undisclosed sum
Courtney, who also co-founded ChatTaxi, confirmed the deal via a statement on LinkedIn: “Selling my first business means a kind of freedom I’ve never known before.”
The statement outlines Lux Rewards’ journey from being “on the brink of shutdown” just four years ago, to now expanding to 105 million payment cards across Europe and North America.
The company raised around £323,000 through Crowdcube campaigns in 2016 and 2019, the latter at a £1.5 million pre-money valuation, and sealed a deal with UK bank Barclays for Barclaycard Business cardholders.
This was followed by a growing roster of clients including Mastercard, Revolut and British Airways, which use the platform to build loyalty programmes and curate relevant merchant offers.
Lux Rewards joins these efforts by handling the back-end operations of these card-linked programmes, such as contracts, merchant IDs, data management and account management.
In a statement posted to LinkedIn, Enigmatic Smile states that the acquisition of Lux Rewards – which it invested in two years ago – is expected to strengthen its card-linked offering and expand its merchant network.
The London-based customer rewards provider previously acquired Fidel API’s loyalty business, including its customer base, partnerships, staff and technology platform, in April last year.
