Snappy Acquires Swag-Gifting Startup Covver to Enhance Personalization
It has become increasingly evident that customers and employees who are recipients of corporate gifts often develop a stronger appreciation for the brand, without the companies having to incur significant expenses. This realization has fueled the growth of the corporate gifting market significantly. Snappy, a market player based in New York that has secured over $125 million in funding, has announced the acquisition of Covver, a platform known for its expertise in corporate merchandise gifting. Although the specific terms of the deal have not been disclosed, it is understood that it involved a combination of cash and shares.
Covver, previously supported by TLV Partners from Tel Aviv, Israel, has raised $7 million to date. The company focuses on creating personalized swag-style merchandise for corporate clients and offers point-based recognition solutions to enhance employee experience. An example of its personalized approach is its ability to automatically incorporate job titles into merchandise, eliminating the need for additional graphic design efforts.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Snappy's Co-Founder and CEO, Hani Goldstein, expressed that Covver's seasoned expertise in swag and company store solutions would perfectly complement Snappy's ability to deliver engaging gifting experiences. The two platforms will be integrated, with Covver essentially becoming the "swag channel" on Snappy's platform.
“What Covver built was an amazing experience for swag that’s based on AI and does it extremely well and innovatively,” said Goldstein. “They were specializing in swag. So we felt like this solution could take all the personalization magic and bring it into the combined world of how we do gifting better, to become the leading gifting platform worldwide.”
The gifting industry holds immense potential, with approximately $50 billion spent on gift cards in the US alone. The corporate gifting sector is worth around $260 billion. However, the use of gift cards often translates into a transactional experience, lacking the personal touch. "There’s about $50 billion worth of gift cards, only in the US," Goldstein added. "The corporate gifting world is worth about $260 billion. But people don’t know what to buy, so they use gift cards. So that provides choice, right? But that it becomes very transactional. It’s like, ‘Hey, Mike, here’s 100 bucks!’ But I wanted to make you feel delighted. So what we want to do is make gifting easy, but still keep the magic and personalization.”
Roee Hemed, CEO of Covver, mentioned in a statement, "By joining forces with Snappy, we’re unlocking new possibilities for our customers, including expanded product solutions and the ability to leverage Snappy’s trusted gifting platform."
Snappy was first introduced on TechCrunch back in 2016 as a consumer app, beginning its journey with bootstrap funds before securing investments from notable backers like Notable Capital, Hearst Ventures, Qumra, 83 North, and other VCs.
Remarkably, Snappy claims that over 47% of Fortune 100 companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Comcast, are its clients. However, Snappy is not without competitors. Sendoso has raised $152.7 million, Postal has raised $46 million, and Dublin-based corporate gifting platform &Open secured $26 million in 2022.