Loyalty rewards startup Glow Labs raises $4.1 million in seed round

Glow Labs, a white label software on the blockchain that lets creators and brands reward their most loyal customers, announced it has raised $4.1 million in seed funding.

The round was led by Harlem Capital, co-founders Annie Reardon and Renee Russo told The Block. Kirsten Green of Forerunner Ventures, Anu Duggal of Female Founders Fund, Drew Austin of Red Beard Ventures, and Heather Harnett of Human Ventures also participated.  

Co-CEOs Reardon and Russo founded Glow Labs in November 2021. They were former engineers and colleagues at JPMorgan, working on Chase’s web and mobile products, and became friends over their shared interest in web3.

Glow Labs was inspired by an experiment by Russo in August, when she launched an NFT project and discovered a gap in the way she could connect with her community online. Russo wanted to reward customers for supporting her work, but the process of doing so was expensive and time consuming. After nearly four weeks and $10,000 spent on a campaign to give customers NFTs, she wanted to create a cheaper and faster way to provide perks.

The pair designed a way to create a rewards program through a smart contract that requires no coding. Partners of Glow Labs can use the product like a rewards card to thank customers for repeat purchases or shoutouts on social media. Rewards can include things like “gas back,” where creators can discount gas fees on future NFT purchases.

There are two ways the US company makes money. Off-chain rewarding, such as with social tokens, requires a monthly fee. On-chain rewarding happens through a "transaction fee when distributing ETH or WETH back to your community's wallets."

Glow Labs has raised a total of $4.4 million so far. With the latest round, the company will focus on growing the team of five, marketing, and focusing on software development.