UrbanBuz, Middle East’s SME-Focused Loyalty Platform, Secures Funding to Continue Rapid Expansion

Dec. 8, 2013 - PRLog -- Dubai, UAE – UrbanBuz, the Middle East’s only digital platform focused on customer loyalty solutions for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), announced that it has closed over $700,000 USD in Series A funding from investors in the United States, Jordan and United Arab Emirates, to accelerate the company’s growth and expand its presence both within the UAE and across the region.

UrbanBuz empowers businesses by helping them boost their profitability through building long-term and meaningful customer relationships in an easy and simple manner. This value proposition has not gone unnoticed by business owners. The company has seen dynamic growth since its beta launch last year, due not only to its focus on the SME sector, which is the fastest growing in the GCC, but also to its simple-yet-advanced technology that leverages the power of social media and mobile technologies.

Mustafa Sadek, the company’s Founder & CEO said, “It is our mission at UrbanBuz to empower SMEs to increase their profitability by enabling them to easily set-up, customize and manage their own state-of-the-art loyalty programs.  Building strong customer relationships is fundamental to all businesses and can have a tremendous impact on their bottom line. Studies have shown that retailers that offer loyalty programs to their customers are 88 percent more profitable on average than those that do not, and that a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in the bottom line of anywhere between 25 percent up to 100 percent.”

UrbanBuz, indeed, makes it easy for businesses to achieve these results. It enables them to customize their loyalty program, either offering cash back or loyalty points that customers can use on their next visit, thus incentivizing them to return often and spend more.  UrbanBuz also enables clients to collaborate with other businesses on the network through co-promotions that attract new customers and grow their reach. Furthermore, from a customer perspective, UrbanBuz could not be easier nor more convenient —all it requires is a phone number, no carrying cards or filling out forms.

With over 25,000 users already signed up on the UrbanBuz platform, business partners across industries have already seen results.  So far, UrbanBuz business partners are seeing approximately a 30 percent average increase in returning customers and approximately a 25 percent average increase in their transaction size. One of the company’s first business partners has even seen a 52 percent growth in sales since joining the UrbanBuz program over one year ago.

“We are driven by our belief in the importance of SMEs growth to any economy and in particular to ours, as they represent more than 90 percent of the economy in the UAE” said Salam Saadeh, the company’s Co-Founder & COO. “Making customer loyalty easy and affordable for SMEs means helping them grow their business and ultimately creating the much needed jobs for our youth.  We are very excited about this round of funding because it will enable us to continue contributing to the SME ecosystem and expanding regionally past the countries we already have presence in.”

About UrbanBuz

Founded in October 2012 in the UAE, UrbanBuz provides SMEs, in both the retail and service sectors, with a turnkey solution to setting up, customizing and managing their own loyalty programs. With a full set of features that serve to both retain and attract new customers, the UrbanBuz platform leverages the power of mobile technology, social media and collaboration between business partners to drive their profitability and growth, while providing them with live access to insightful data about their customers. With ease and convenience in mind, the platform has furthermore been designed to be accessible by all customers either from the main platform on UrbanBuz.com, mobile web, or through the native apps that will be launched in December 2013. The UrbanBuz platform has also been utilized by some clients to incentivize and reward employees and suppliers. Although focused on the GCC, UrbanBuz also currently has presence in Lebanon and soon in Turkey.

For more information, please visit www.urbanbuz.com.