Quick take:
- The company also established a new crypto-centric board, including ex-Kraken chief legal officer Marco Santori and Bjorn Wagner, ex-CEO of Polkadot developer Parity Technologies.
- Other new board appointments include George Ruan, cofounder and former CEO of Honey, as well as Matt Maloney, founder and former CEO of GrubHub.
- The company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its product offering into crypto with “Smart Cards”.
Raise, a gift card startup founded in 2013 by George Bousis, has raised $63 million in a funding round led by Haun Ventures. The fundraising also attracted participation from Paper Ventures, Selini Capital, GSR, and Raj Gokal, the co-founder of the blockchain Solana.
The fundraising included a mix of primary and secondary share sales as well as token warrants, and values the startup at no less than its $675 million Series D valuation, Bousis said, declining to comment on the exact current value.
Bousis wants to leverage the power of blockchain technology to combat gift card theft, amid reports that have stolen or altered gift card numbers to drain hundreds of millions of dollars from Americans.
“We saw the really ugly side of gift cards that not a lot of people talk about,” he told Fortune.
According to the announcement, the fundraising was accompanied by the establishment of a new crypto-centric board, including ex-Kraken chief legal officer Marco Santori and Bjorn Wagner, ex-CEO of Polkadot developer Parity Technologies.
Other new board appointments include George Ruan, cofounder and former CEO of Honey, as well as Matt Maloney, founder and former CEO of GrubHub.
Raise plans to use the new capital to expand into the crypto territory with what Bousis called “Smart Cards”. “It’s really betting the house on what we think is really the future,” he said. “And we think the time is now,” adding that the crypto-branded round had nothing to do with the current financial health of his company.
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