Today, Haney is still building TYB, with 38 employees—and it’s outlasted the rise and fall of blockchain/crypto/NFT-mania. The platform is intended to be a layer of loyalty infrastructure for consumer brands, what Haney calls “community commerce.” Two hundred brands use the platform, as do 2 million users—mostly Gen Z women.
Haney just raised an $11 million Series A for TYB, Fortune is the first to report. The round was co-led by Offline Ventures and Strobe Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, and Unusual Ventures. This brings its total capital to $23.5 million.
Consumers on TYB participate in gamified challenges, earn collectibles, and have blockchain-enabled loyalty profiles that can potentially follow them from brand to brand. A TYB-using customer has 40% higher frequency of purchase and a 28% higher lifetime value, Haney says. Monthly engagement rates for brands crack 40%. Haney tells brands that TYB can drive 5% to 10% of revenue—“in a more profitable fashion than putting all your dollars against Instagram or Facebook.”
TYB is developing “affinity webs” that can map a user’s loyalty to one brand and apply it to another. “Within the Glossier community where I’m level three—can that mean something to Nike?” Haney explains.
She’s brought some lessons with her from Outdoor Voices and the tens of millions it raised. “I’ve become a lot more sophisticated, or precise, in terms of who I who I raise money from, how much money I raise, and ultimately considerate of ownership and as little dilution as possible,” she says.
