MANILA, Philippines – Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has increased its investment in Israel-based marketing and loyalty platforms provider AppCard.
In a statement issued over the weekend, PLDT said its investment arm PLDT Capital led the financing round which raised a total of $20 million with Alexander Rittweger, founder of Loyalty Partner.
Apart from PLDT Capital and Rittweger, AppCard’s existing investors such as Founders Fund (Peter Thiel), Innovation Endeavors (Eric Schmidt), and Jerry Yang also participated in the fund raising.
The breakdown of the amounts contributed by each investor was not available as of press time.
The new funding would be used to further develop AppCard’s techno-logy which enables retailers to market directly to their shoppers in a personalized manner.
The latest version of the technology was launched in the second-half of 2015.
Last year, PLDT Capital spent $5 million for its partnership with AppCard.
“The AppCard platform caught our attention because of its advanced technology and creative business model,” said PLDT Capital co-managing director Winston Damarillo.
With the partnership with AppCard, he said PLDT intends to bring the technology to businesses in the country and in the region.
“The leadership is a dream team, consisting of successful tech and loyalty entrepreneurs. We’re excited to bring the benefits of AppCard to the PLDT Group, as well as to consumers and merchants in the Philippines and the Southeast Asian region,” said Damarillo.
PLDT Capital was established last year to grow the group’s digital services and to connect to leading companies in Silicon Valley.
Through PLDT Capital, the group is making investments to expand its digital offerings to consumers and to support business units Smart Communications, Inc., ePLDT, Digital 5 and Voyager Innovations, Inc.
PLDT is the country’s leading telecommunications and digital services provider.