Miles, the app that offers rewards for traveling, expands to Latin America and Europe

These should be trying times for an app whose sole purpose is to collect information on where people travel and reward them for sharing it.

However, not only has Miles, the startup company founded by Jigar Shah, survived the pandemic, it managed to attract new capital from a strategic investor during the months where everyone has been sheltering in place and doing the one thing that should be an anathema to a Shah’s business… staying put.

The idea behind Miles is simple, as Shah puts it, every year consumers travel 25 trillion miles and they pay nearly $18 trillion dollars for the privilege. Miles offers rewards and incentives for different kinds of transportation by working with partners. And the company recently received a strategic investment from Liil Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Mexico City-based MobilityADO.

Already operating in North America and Japan, the company said that it would use the new investment to expand in the European Union and Latin America.

Interestingly, the company adapted to the new shelter in place restrictions put in place to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 as the disease swept across the world by encouraging users to stay at home and spend money with the nearly 200 app partners that are currently signed on to reward Miles users with points.

The company also instituted bonus miles for physical activities like walking, biking, and running giving users a twenty times bonus on the miles they earned.

In all miles users have redeemed over 500,000 rewards and received over $10 million in discounts. And the company is expanding its services through a partnership with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to provide rewards to app-users that avail themselves of public transportation options.

While Miles rewards all travel, it gives bonuses for different, greener modes of transportation. Public transit riders can accumulate three times the Miles that would be awarded for their trip. Bike riders, pedestrians and joggers earn ten times the Miles points.

To date the company has raised roughly $7.4 million, according to Crunchbase.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3gXaaxb
via IFTTT

Comments

9 VCs in Madrid and Barcelona discuss the COVID-19 era and look to the future

Spain’s startup ecosystem has two main hubs: Madrid and Barcelona. Most observers place Barcelona first and Madrid second, but the gap appears to close every year. Barcelona has benefitted from attracting expats in search of sun, beach and lifestyle who tend to produce more internationally minded startups. Madrid’s startups have predominantly been Spain or Latin America-focused, but have become increasingly international in nature. Although not part of this survey, we expect Valencia to join next year, as city authorities have been going all-out to attract entrepreneurs and investors. The overall Spanish ecosystem is generally less mature than those in the U.K., France, Sweden and Germany, but it has been improving at a fast clip. More recently, entrepreneurs in Spain have moved away from emulating success in pursuit of innovative technologies. Following the financial crisis, the Spanish government supported the creation of startups with the launch of FOND-ICO GLOBAL, a €1.5 billi

How to Stay Creative and Keep SEO in Mind

Information Technology Blog - - How to Stay Creative and Keep SEO in Mind - Information Technology Blog Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to customizing your website’s content to ensure that web browsers give your website a high SEO score. The sites with the highest SEO scores are featured on the search engine’s first page of search results for relevant searches. 71% of the click-throughs happen with articles listed on the first page of results on the search engine. This means that if your website’s article is the second (or third, or fourth page), it’s less likely the search user will even see your article. You want your article to be ranking as close to the top of the first page of results as possible. In order to have a good SEO score your site’s content needs to feature keywords and relevant phrases. It must be optimized for easy navigation between pages. It also needs to be referenced via external links that drive traffic to your site. Incorporating all of these elem

Everything we know about HHS Protect, a secretive government project with Peter Thiel's Palantir that helps brief Trump's coronavirus task force

A secretive project at the US Department of Health and Human Services is working with technology companies to collect and analyze data related to the novel coronavirus . Dubbed "HHS Protect," the effort tracks information from around the country about coronavirus case numbers, hospital capacity, and even supply chain issues. HHS uses Palantir Technologies , a data firm cofounded by Peter Thiel, to distill that information for the White House coronavirus task force. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . A secretive project at the US Department of Health and Human Services is working with technology companies to collect and analyze data related to the novel coronavirus. Dubbed "HHS Protect," the effort includes roughly 2.5 billion pieces of data from healthcare providers, government officials, and labs around the country about coronavirus case numbers, hospital capacity, and even supply chain issues. The goal is learn about the progress

FREE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BLOG FOR PROFESSIONALS

Search This Blog