Earny, the personal finance service that automatically monitors for and claims refunds on past purchases through retailer and credit card price protection policies, announced today that it has raised $9 million in series A financing to accelerate growth.
The funding round led by Mayfield with participation from Comcast Ventures and existing investor Science Inc. brings the company’s total funding to $11.5 million.
As a leading consumer advocate service, Earny automatically gets hundreds of thousands of shoppers money back on almost every item they purchase by tracking price adjustments and retrieving the difference. Most people either aren’t aware their credit cards or favorite retailers have price protection policies when products get discounted after a purchase. What’s more, many people don’t want to bother with the hassle of filing claims.
Earny also announces they are now automating credit card price protection claims on all Visa credit cards. Visa accounts for more than 52 percent of the credit card market share in the United States (Wallethub), and Americans are expected to spend more than $678 billion during this holiday season (NRF).
Earny’s analytics show that 37 percent of all online shopping happens between November 1 and December 24. This holiday shopping season, voice-activated personal assistants are leading the way at Amazon, Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Earny’s data for Black Friday shopping shows:
• At Amazon, the Alexa-activated Fire Stick, the Echo Dot, an Alexa-activated smart plug, the Fire Tablet with Alexa, and second generation Echo were the top purchases respectively
• Best Buy’s top two items were the Google Home Mini and Amazon Fire Stick with Alexa respectively
• Wal-Mart’s top item was the Google Chromecast, and the Google Home Mini and Google Home were in the top 5 items purchased
"We're honored to be working with Mayfield, the Series A investors in Lyft and Poshmark," said Oded Vakrat, co-founder & CEO of Earny. "Mayfield has experience building massive companies that change everyday consumer behavior for the better. Now with coverage of all Visa credit cards, and the support from Mayfield and Science Inc., we can use technology to manage the burdensome task of tracking countless price drops and requesting refunds. We are now another step closer to fulfilling our mission of becoming the number one consumer advocate service in the world."
Earny shoppers using price-protected credit cards get back approximately 5 percent of what they spend online on average. Some Earny shoppers have gotten more than $2,200 back in a year and more than $800 back in a single refund.
“We are honored to partner with Oded, Dori and the Earny team as they build the category-defining consumer advocacy platform,“ said Rishi Garg, Mayfield partner and Earny board member. “We love how Earny’s application of proprietary technology seamlessly automates price protection for everyday shoppers, and we’re excited about their vision to enable more commerce by increasing consumer trust in every purchase. We are confident that Earny will become an essential tool in every shopper’s arsenal.”
Earny covers major retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Costco, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart and more and works with 90-day price protection for all credit cards from Visa, Chase, Citibank and Mastercards for Bank of America, US Bank, Capital One, Barclays and First Premier Bank. Earny is available on iOS and Android. For more information, please visit Earny.co.