Celebrating Loyal Guru's 6th Anniversary

Picture this: it’s 2016, and this is happening around the world:

• The Summer Olympics take place in Rio de Janeiro.
• The state primaries are held for the US 2016 presidential election, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump emerging as the presumptive nominees for the Democratic and Republican races.
• Physicists confirm existence of gravitational waves.
• World tiger count rises for first time in 100 years.

And then… Borja Sanfeliu and Javi Fernández come up with a revolutionary idea (sadly enough, it was not from their garage).

“What if we could enable retailers to harness the power of technology and data so they can optimize their marketing activities?”

And just like that, Loyal Guru was born.

Since then, our team at Loyal Guru has built and extraordinary CDP and loyalty management software specifically designed to answer the distinct needs of grocers and retailers. To this date it has helped over 50 leading retail brands across Europe and the Americas to develop their customers in a unique way. These retailers include Mango, Decathlon, Dia Group, Cencosud, and Spar.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without our amazing team of Loyalist, a team of over 100 smart and talented people that have helped make possible this success.

As we celebrate Loyal Guru‘s 6th anniversary, we wanted to take you on a stroll down memory lane and give a shout-out to 6 noteworthy wins we‘ve reached over our 6 years in business:

WIN #1: We land our first valued customers – and through them we get invaluable feedback that helps us improve our technology (2017)

It’s only fair to mention the first Spanish grocery brands that relied on Loyal Guru to solve their customer data and loyalty management needs: Ametller, Pyrénées and many others. We are thankful for the ongoing relationship with those first customers that came on board.

Learning closely from grocers how our software performed allowed us to better understand their challenges. We quickly realized what they expected in terms of data management, data activation and loyalty management – and how they used our software day-to-day.

This enabled Loyal Guru to design a solution fully tailored to answer their specific needs.

We used this insight to hit more and more targets and as a result, Loyal Guru successfully to designed a robust solution, fully tailored to answer grocery retailers´ specific needs.

It was exciting to realize that we were progressively making a name for ourselves in the Spanish grocery market, and we had ambitions for much more!

WIN #2: Loyal Guru is selected by Mango to develop and launch new ‘Mango Likes You‘ loyalty program (2019)

Mango is an international fashion brand with over 2.000 stores worldwide and over €2.5B in revenue. Mango‘s mission was to launch a best-in-class global loyalty program in fashion retail that would align with values such as sustainability, culture and community.

The program was initially set in motion in Spain and France, and since then has grown to over 15 countries and over 9M members across the globe.

“Since we started designing ‘Mango Likes You’ we wanted it to be a 100% omnichannel program with multiple initiatives and experiences. In addition, it had to be as simple as possible for the user. I think we‘ve succeeded with both, and that it brings great value to our clients.” commented Guillermo Corominas, Director of Mango’s Customer Department during the programs’ launch.

WIN #3: Powered by Loyal Guru, DIA Group commits to their digital transformation

DIA is a multinational supermarket chain founded in 1979. They have nearly 6,000 food stores, both owned and franchised. DIA group is present in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, and Brazil. The leading supermarket has more than 20 million customers that shop at their physical establishments and online store.

WIN #4: Loyal Guru becomes one of Google’s Independent Software Vendors (2021)

Loyal Guru was first born in 2016 on Google Cloud.

“We started our journey as a five-person team and we needed to analyze tons of data to activate campaigns within loyalty programs that were personalized to each of our client’s customers. Why Google? The answer is simple: scale, speed and breadth.” said Javi Fernandez, co-founder and CTO.

Loyal Guru’s ISV relationship with Google Cloud has shown great potential to increase business year over year.

“The Google team has facilitated valuable introductions to companies in new markets for Loyal Guru, such as America and Asia”, said Borja Sanfeliu, co-founder and CEO of Loyal Guru. “Google is highlighting our solution, and it has connections to data teams at many different retail companies.”

WIN #5: Loyal Guru secures 8€M in series A funding led by Nauta Capital, supported by existing investors Greycroft Ventures and THCap (2022)

This recent round of investment enables Loyal Guru to further its growth ambitions across Europe and the Americas and further develop its loyalty platform.

“Loyal Guru has already demonstrated a strong track record of innovation and growth. The retail market is ripe for digital transformation, but lacking solutions specifically built with retailers in mind: we are confident that Loyal Guru is well placed to seize the opportunities on offer as it creates a unique, customer-centric approach to retail across all channels.” said Jordi Vinas, Partner at Nauta Capital.

WIN #6: Decathlon United chooses Loyal Guru to launch a loyalty program MVP in Spain and Hungary, with expansion plans across the globe (2022).

With over 1600 stores in 60 countries and regions, Decathlon is the largest sporting goods retailer in the world. Decathlon’s global presence requires seamless cross-border functionalities, while allowing for local rules customization.

Powered by Loyal Guru’s technology, Decathlon aims to reward and build durable relationships around sport, health and sustainability.

During the 2nd half of 2022 the program will expand to France, Germany, Colombia and Morocco, and in the next 5 years Decathlon United plans to expand to 60 more countries and boost loyalty member transactions.

BONUS: New commercial collaboration with Google Cloud Platform Marketplace (2022)

Through this commercial partnership, retail businesses using Google Cloud will benefit from frictionless and rapid access to Loyal Guru’s data platform and solutions.

The move also provides an important new distribution channel for Loyal Guru as the company enters a rapid growth phase.

Where are we now? In our last 6 years of operation, we’ve seen retailers do a tremendous job to push toward a data-driven future.

The retailer landscape is changing. We have grown significantly over the last years and we’ve developed a powerful software, one whose full potential we believe is still becoming apparent.

The strength and continued service of retail businesses in the world requires the implementation of software platforms that are capable of enabling both technical and nontechnical departments to make sense of the data they generate in day to day operations.

Loyal Guru has built such a platform.

Looking to the future, we will continue to help leading retail businesses develop, launch or uplevel their customer strategy and go on to shine. And in doing this we will strive to maintain the position as the major loyalty program technology enabler through continued dedication to innovation and excellence.