November 30, 2021 — PORTLAND, OR — Portland-based SnowShoe, the leading developer of smart loyalty systems, today announced its acquisition of Loyalti, a leading provider of retail storefront loyalty programs. The acquisition catapults SnowShoe into a leadership position in the retail loyalty sector, enabling the company to bring its new Spark Loyalty® solutions to retailers, restaurateurs and merchants around the world.
“SnowShoe is now positioned to lead the way in loyalty solutions for retail,” says SnowShoe CEO Ned Hayes. “Our patented technology and our passion for the retail store experience empowers business owners and delights customers.”
“Helping small businesses do big things is so important. Loyalty is a huge revenue driver for retail and SnowShoe’s momentum in this space is amazing.”
Christine Russo, Industry Analyst,
Retail Creative & Consulting Agency
Dheeraj Sanka, a successful entrepreneur and tech investor, founded Loyalti in 2016. Loyalti carved out a niche as a leading customer loyalty program for independent brick-and-mortar retailers, such as Creamistry and Poke House. The unified Loyalti solution is based on SnowShoe technology and combines fast mobile check-in, marketing opt-ins and automated email and text messaging in one stand-alone system.
“Our five-year partnership with SnowShoe has been a strong and fruitful one,” says Sanka. “SnowShoe’s Spark technology has been central to the delightful in-store experience that we provide to our customers. I’m excited to see SnowShoe bring a newly revitalized solution to market and help many more small business owners increase customer engagement and grow their business.”
Loyalti’s Sales Director Ron Sim has already joined the SnowShoe team as Sales Executive focused on the retail business sector. Sim will create a smooth transition for current customers during the acquisition and will lead SnowShoe’s retail new business development efforts in 2022 and beyond. Over the course of their existing partnership, the two companies have touched more than 1,000 retailers across all fifty of the United States and in many locations nationwide. “Ron helped Loyalti increase its client base by ten-fold over the past few years, so we’re delighted to have him on the team,” says Hayes.
SnowShoe plans to continue to develop and expand their set of retail loyalty solutions, with world-class support for independent retailers and small businesses. SnowShoe says current Loyalti customers shouldn’t expect to see any near-term change to their program, except for a change to a new name: Spark Loyalty®.
Leading retail consultant and market analyst Christine Russo reacted positively to the news. “Loyalty is a huge revenue driver for retail, it’s really important, and SnowShoe’s momentum here is amazing!” said Russo. “Helping small businesses do big things is so important — why can’t small businesses have a giant loyalty program like Taco Bell or Domino’s Pizza? SnowShoe now has a great whole product solution.”
SnowShoe is an international provider of solutions based on a proprietary check-in technology, patented in 18 countries around the globe. The company’s unique Spark® technology provides solutions on nearly every continent today. Enterprise clients include Shell and Red Bull, and SnowShoe is also the long-time trusted loyalty partner for global performance marketing engagement leader, Merkle.
Since its founding in 2010, a number of prominent investors have propelled SnowShoe’s proprietary technology to leadership in loyalty and related security-conscious arenas. SnowShoe investors include Techstars, 500 Startups, Lowercase Capital, Collaborative Fund, MESA+ Capital and VaynerRSE. In the past few years, SnowShoe has been named one of Mashable’s 10 Tech Startups to Watch, and the company was the winner of a TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon. Terms of the acquisition were not made publicly available.
SnowShoe has released a special episode of the Spark Plug podcast featuring a conversation between Hayes and Loyalti founder Dheeraj Sanka. In the 15-minute episode, Hayes and Sanka chat about the merger and acquisition between these two leading retail technology providers as well as the future of retail loyalty solutions at SnowShoe. Listen to the episode here.
About SnowShoe
SnowShoe provides world-class presence solutions that pinpoint retail locations and lock in customer loyalty. SnowShoe’s innovative IOT-based event marker bridges the last mile between digital identity and physical presence. SnowShoe has been lauded by TechStars and the Disney Accelerator program. SnowShoe’s unique technology is proprietary and is protected by 32 patents in 18 countries.
Contact
For information about our Portland-based team, including photos of our executive team, please visit snow.sh/about
For SnowShoe press materials, including images of our products in action, please visit snow.sh/media
Online snow.sh
Email info@snow.sh
Phone 503-713-5644