We are excited to announce that Punchd, an Initio Group Portfolio company, has been acquired by Google. Punchd, a digital loyalty card service for iPhone and Android platforms was part of Initio’s first Fund.
Punchd was cooked up by Founders Reed Morse and Grantland Chew in an Android Dev. class at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA in 2010. By early 2011, the team was accepted into the first class, (Batch #000) of Dave McClure’s 500 Startups program.
Initio Group’s Mike Edwards discovered Punchd back in February 2011 while researching various restaurant loyalty programs and Google’s mobile wallet service. After reaching out to the founders to learn more about their product and team, Mike decided to attend 500 Startups first Demo Day in San Francisco on April 8. Further impressed by the Punchd team, and what they had accomplished by Demo Day, Mike made the decision to invest on the spot. And the rest is history!
Congratulations to Reed Morse, Xander Pollock, Niket Desai and the entire team, who will all be working on Punchd within the Googleplex.
Mike (Centre) with Dave McClure and Founders from 500 Startups, Batch #000