Transforming corporate gifting: &Open secures $7.2 million super seed funding to innovate the industry

This infusion of capital comes at a key moment as we take a bold and ambitious leap forward. It will help grow our exceptional team with a particular focus on both our Go-To-Market and Product functions. Beyond that, it is a wonderful validation of the team's caring and creative work and fundamentally real belief in &Open’s trajectory.

&Open has been profitable and, until now, entirely self-funded. When we founded the company in 2017, we had a little more than a belief and an ambition: to change gifting for the better. We saw that corporate gifting culture had become overly transactional in nature. Our thinking was, and remains, simple: good relationships aren’t built on thoughtless freebies. Our mission is straightforward: to inspire loyalty with thoughtful acts of care. In short, we wanted to make corporate gifting human-centered, easy and joyful for all involved.

We like simple ideas and fixing things, so we took a chance and assembled an exceptional team. Together we built the very platform our clients use today — one that streamlines and simplifies the entire operation of B2C gifting. It handles all communication, logistics and reporting. It seamlessly integrates with existing workflows and creates an interface that is quick and easy to use. With the platform, gifts take moments to dispatch, but it's not just the technology that’s innovative. Equally important are the gifts themselves which we take great care to source responsibly.

To Hayley at First Round Capital and George at LocalGlobe, thank you for believing in our potential. Your care and conviction has become our beacon. To our chorus of angel investors, we are delighted to have you in the mix: Alex for your enthusiasm; Andy for introducing us to Hayley; Andrew for your insight and joy; Barry for breaking a path to our investors; Brian for believing in us when others did not; Capricorn for your passion; Chris for connecting us with everyone; Cian for your endless enthusiasm; Des for your bold encouragement; John for understanding us quicker than most; Liam because we needed a Corkonian amongst us; Mark for your guidance and trust; Oyster for your insight and persistence; Simon for helping us before all others; Tribal because we will be turning to you in times of trouble and joy; Unpopular for making us smile. Thank you all.

To our amazing clients whose engagement constantly pushes us to do better, we are lucky and grateful to have you on board. You provide endless insight, feedback and inspiration as we continue to build a product deserving of your trust.

To our team, we cannot thank you enough. Each and every one of you brought us to this moment, and every investor with whom we spoke was super impressed by the brand you have built and the clients that you serve. Thank you for your care and tenacity, your energy and how you continually evolve our brand and product. We’re proud and passionate about working with you everyday.

And all that said: To those who are just learning about us, we’re hiring across almost every team. If you don’t see a role that’s quite right for you, we encourage you to apply anyway. Fundamentally we are looking for exceptional individuals: caring and creative, rigorous and ambitious, unafraid of the unknown, diligent yet daring, and relentlessly optimistic. Reach out and let’s talk.

This is only the beginning.