Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Scvngr's LevelUp teams with AmEx, Levi's on paperless daily deals

By Rodney H. Brown

LevelUp, the pilot project launched in March by Scvngr Inc. that puts it in the race with Groupon Inc. for daily deals, announced late Monday a deal with American Express and Levi’s that will allow users to get a deal on jeans without having to print and redeem a paper coupon.

After purchasing a daily deal through LevelUp on Levi’s products, the user can redeem the deal by simply using their American Express card that has been attached to the LevelUp account at the point of purchase – the deal will automatically be applied as a credit to the account in the amount of the discount, officials said in a release.

The initial trial of this new paperless deal feature will run from From May 10 to August 31 and be available only to specific Levi’s stores in San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia – specifically, the Levi’s Store on Newbury Street in Boston, the Levi’s flagship store on Post Street in San Francisco, and the Levi’s store at the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania.

Cambridge-based Scvngr, which raised $15 million in January with new investor Balderton Capital and existing backers Highland Capital Partners and Google Ventures, reported in March it is spending about $1 million per city to launch the LevelUp service. At that time, Scvngr founder and CEO Seth Priebatsch said the service uses game mechanics to “do what 500 knockoffs in the daily deals space couldn’t...and that is make customers actually come back....It’s not just about customer acquisition, it’s about customer retention and there needs to be a tool that can do both.”

In total, Scvngr has raised more than $20 million in funding from Google Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Balderton. LevelUp is based in Boston, with satellite offices in each of the cities they serve.