RetailMeNot, Inc. (formerly Whaleshark Media) is an American
multinational company headquartered in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
, that maintains a collection of
coupon
In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be redeemed for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product.
Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods
or by retailers, to be used in r ...
web sites. The company was founded by Cotter Cunningham.
The company owns RetailMeNot.com and VoucherCodes.co.uk and acquires coupon sites and third-party software.
RetailMeNot was established to aggregate coupon offers and make them available to consumers. It distributes coupons in retail categories including accessories, automotive, baby products, beauty products, clothing, electronics, furniture, health, home and garden, jewelry, pets, photography, toys and travel.
History
Founded in 2006 by Australian entrepreneurs Guy King and Bevan Clark. The two had previously collaborated on
BugMeNot, a site that allowed users to share fake identities in order to avoid website registrations and content paywalls, and a
content management system
A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...
. The company was acquired by Whaleshark Media in 2010. The company raised $300 million in funding from
Austin Ventures
Austin Ventures (AV) is a private equity firm focused on venture capital and growth equity investments in business services and supply chain, financial services, new media, Internet, and information services companies nationally with a focus on T ...
,
Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...
, Adams Street Partners,
Institutional Venture Partners
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on later-stage venture capital and growth equity investments. IVP is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1980.
History
While Reid W. Denn ...
,
JP Morgan
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the wo ...
and
Google Ventures
GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides Seed investment, seed, Venture capital financing, venture, and Growth investing, growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Venture ...
.
Eventually acquiring the already established coupon site RetailMeNot.com from Australia, the company changed its name in 2013 to RetailMeNot.
As Whaleshark Media, the company acquired sites in the US and Europe. After changing its name to RetailMeNot in June 2013 for branding purposes, the company filed an
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
for $230 million in 2013.
In April 2017
Harland Clarke Holdings, (HCH) a payment and marketing services firm, announced to acquire RetailMeNot in a deal worth $630 million in equity. On February 6, 2020 HCH announced that it would relaunch itself as ''Vericast.''
The company established annual National Cashback Day during the month of November where shoppers can receive up to 20% cash back on online purchases made on that day from about 300 national retailers such
Banana Republic
In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring ...
,
Bloomingdale’s,
Estée Lauder,
Gap, and
Macy’s
Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
.
In September 2020, RetailMeNot was in early talks with potential buyers, with a target price of between $500 and $600 million. On September 29, 2020,
J2 Global, Inc.—a leading internet information services company—announced it entered into a purchase agreement to acquire RetailMeNot from Vericast for approximately $420 million. The acquisition was completed in October 2020.
Legal issues
Mary Kay
Mary Kay Inc. is an American privately owned multi-level marketing company. According to '' Direct Selling News'', Mary Kay was the sixth largest network marketing company in the world in 2018, with a wholesale volume of US$3.25 billion. Cosmetics sued affiliate site RetailMeNot in federal court for displaying coupons on their site despite the fact they have been asked to take them down. Mary Kay's position is that the display of Mary Kay coupons misleads consumers and harms the brand and its relationship with its sales reps (independent consultants) in several ways. The lawsuit was resolved after several months by way of confidential settlement.
In June 2018, RetailMeNot sued competitor
Honey Science Corporation over patent infringement in computer-related technologies. As of June 2020, the case is still ongoing.
Acquisitions
RetailMeNot's acquisitions include:
* RetailMeNot.com, a digital coupon site in the United States
* eConversions, the parent company of Gutschein-Codes.de in Germany and VoucherCodes, a voucher code site in the United Kingdom
* Ma-Reduc.com and Poulpeo.com, digital coupon and cash back sites in France
* ZenDeals.com, a North American coupon site (October 9, 2013)
* Giftcard Zen Inc, a North American gift card exchange site (April 5, 2016)
* LowestMed, a North American prescription drug comparison site (May 8, 2018)
References
External links
*{{official website, http://www.retailmenot.com/corp/
Software companies based in Texas
Multinational companies headquartered in the United States
Companies based in Austin, Texas
Retail companies established in 2006
Software companies established in 2006
2006 establishments in Texas
2020 mergers and acquisitions
Software companies of the United States