Auden : raises shareholding in portfolio company Fanmiles to 11.7 per cent through pre-series A financing round

Berlin - 1 March 2017

• Auden AG and Philipp Lahm Holding further expand roles as key investors
• Fanmiles launches open developer programme for universal 'loyalty currency'
• Vision to become world's leading currency for loyalty programmes and solutions

Fanmiles, the loyalty tech start-up, has successfully completed its next financing round at a valuation of EUR 30 million. The proceeds will be used to invest in the company's further growth, in particular to strengthen its technology department as well as to expand the company's international partner network from its Berlin headquarters. Moreover, the Fanmiles product and technology platform will be further developed, as previously announced, to broaden its reach beyond the existing base of celebrities such as football stars, who can reward their fans with Fanmiles-based loyalty campaigns on Facebook. Through the first open developer programme of its kind in the area of loyalty technology, Fanmiles is now able to offer native integration to its partner companies. The company's existing client base includes such major brands as Adidas, EA Games, German television and internet portal provider Sport1, sports retailer Intersport, gaming provider Electronic Sports League (ESL), cinema chain CineStar, and German national league football teams FC Schalke 04, Hertha BSC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Following key milestones such as the acquisition of Berlin events app Vamos and the launch of the Fanmiles app just in time for the 2016 UEFA European Championship, Fanmiles has created the world's first open ecosystem for loyalty. In addition to directly enabling social media loyalty campaigns for celebrities such as German football stars, the Fanmiles developers programme now also makes it possible for companies of all size to create and manage their own loyalty programmes or other solutions based on #fanmiles as an open loyalty currency valid through the world. Under this arrangement, users will be able to collect #fanmiles from a wide range of partners, rewarding them for their loyalty whatever they do and wherever they are. Their accumulated #fanmiles can then be redeemed throughout the partner network to earn exclusive and exciting premiums. The vision of Fanmiles is to become the world's leading 'loyalty currency' for loyalty programmes and solutions, thereby providing a powerful means for business partners and developers to invest in direct and effective customer retention.

'Knowing and retaining customers is essential to the success of any company. Because new customer acquisition is roughly five times more expensive than holding onto existing customers, customer retention efforts should be absolutely central to a company's marketing activities,' explains Fanmiles founder Fabian Schmidt. 'With Fanmiles, we are now able to offer companies the first platform of its kind through which they can directly invest in the long-term retention of their own customers using a native-integration loyalty solution. This means that, by increasing customer retention by 5%, their profits can be boosted by as much as 95%.'

'The most recent developments at Fanmiles, on both the customer and product sides, continue to impress and excite us,' says Christofer Radic, CEO of Auden AG. 'It's precisely for this reason that we were keen to participate in this interim round above and beyond our pro-rata share, in anticipation of a significantly higher valuation level at the time of the upcoming series A financing round.'