Wrapp Prepares to Introduce Mobile Social Gifting in Brazil

Creator of Social Gifting Service for Giving Facebook Friends Free Gift Cards From Top Retailers Starts Pre-Launch Phase of Integration With Popular Merchants

SAO PAULO – May 2, 2012 – Wrapp, the new social gifting app for celebrating, thanking, surprising and delighting friends and family with free gift cards from top retailers, has just introduced its service in the U.S. and is now preparing to do the same Brazil.

Created for Facebook and smartphone users, Wrapp allows friends to contribute to the free gift cards, and makes it fun and easy to give, receive and redeem them using mobile devices.

For merchants, Wrapp is a proven customer-acquisition and retention platform for conducting discount-free, performance-based campaigns. With Wrapp, retailers use friend-to-friend marketing to drive highly targeted in-store and on-line sales, and get real-time access to aggregated campaign and customer demographic data.

“Brazilian merchants appreciate the difference and benefits of working with the company that invented next-generation social gifting and friend-to-friend marketing rather than a copycat, which is more likely to be a competitor than trusted long-term partner,” said Hermano Cintra, Wrapp’s country manager for Brazil.

Since mid-November, when Wrapp began its commercial introduction, nearly 200,000 active Wrapp users have given their friends more than 1.5 million gift cards that can be redeemed in stores operated by some 70 major retailers across Europe and the U.S.

Participating merchants report that the average purchase generated by Wrapp is at least four to six times the value of the free gift card the retailer provides for friends to give to one another.

“Wrapp is the only social gifting service whose interests are 100 percent aligned with the retailers’,” said Carl Fritjofsson, Wrapp co-founder and chief operating officer. “We do not own, nor will we ever start, an ecommerce business that competes with our merchant partners. That’s our promise. Because we know that partnership in this business requires constant innovation and the sharing of confidential data.”

In addition to Brazil, Wrapp will soon be available in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and Turkey.

“Brazil will be a crucial market for Wrapp,” said Fritjofsson. “We’re well funded by Atomico and Greylock Partners, the venture capital firms of our board members Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype, and Reid Hoffman, founder of the social network LinkedIn. We are putting our money where our mouth is by making significant investments here to insure success for Brazilian retailers."

In the meantime, to start sending free gift cards to friends and family living in, or who will soon be visiting the U.S., U.K., Norway or Sweden, download the Wrapp mobile app from Apple’s App Store, Google Play, or use the web app at www.wrapp.com, and connect it to your Facebook account.

“One thing that make Wrapp super cool is the gift cards you receive are stored in your phone, so they’re always with you when you want to buy something you really want,” said Cintra. “And no matter where you are in the world, you never have to miss celebrating friends’ important moments ever again.”

Wrapp was started last year by Wrapp’s CEO, Hjalmar Winbladh and a small team of Sweden’s best and brightest entrepreneurs, including Fritjofsson, strategy advisor to Groupon.se; Andreas Ehn, Spotify’s first chief technology officer; Magnus Hult, who played a key role in building Spotify’s original technology and platform; Aage Reerslev, founder of mobile browser maker Squace; Leo Giertz, founder of Barefoot Hackers, one of Sweden’s most acclaimed iPhone development shops; and Fabian Mansson, former CEO of H&M and Eddie Bauer, who now serves as Wrapp’s chairman.

Winbladh co-founded Sendit, the first mobile Internet company, where he served as CEO, and took it public in 1997, before being acquired by Microsoft. In 2006 Winbladh co-founded Rebtel, now the world's largest independent mobile VoIP company, where he continues as chairman.