Stealth WiFi and customer loyalty startup Zenreach, Inc. has raised $30 million Series B in a round led by Founders Fund that included previous investors Formation 8, Bain Capital Ventures and First Round Capital.

As part of the deal, legendary investor and Gawker Media-slaying hero Peter Thiel will be joining the board.

Founded in 2013 but acting in stealth mode until now, Zenreach offers a service that allows businesses to offer free in-store WiFi, and in return gain insights about their customers.

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform involves customers logging into the new free WiFi hotspot, then Zenreach automatically building a customer list based on those logins, allowing business to differentiate between new, repeat, loyal and lost customers.

Using this data, and the fact that to sign up to the free WiFi customers must register using an email address, the platform is able to automate just-in-time, relevant marketing for them and then report campaign success not only by open rate or click-through rate, but also the walk through rate into the store itself; the WiFi access is a one-time only login, so customers returning to the store are automatically reconnected to the network presuming they are using the same device as the last time they visited.

“Just like an e-commerce merchant cares most about website clicks that can lead to sales, brick and mortar merchants care about walk-ins, both on a one-time basis and a lifetime basis,” Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jack Abraham explained in a post on Medium. “Zenreach tells them whether their marketing causes customers to come back, how often, and how valuable that ultimately is to them so they can make smarter business decisions.”

Remarkably, while being in stealth until this point, the company claims that in their home city of San Francisco over one-third of the population has already logged into their service, and that they have grown to 150 employees while growing revenues at 7.5 times year-over-year.

Clever idea

The idea of capturing customer data through the offer of free WiFi then using that data for marketing purposes may seem like a simple idea, but it sure is a clever one at that.

Customers are able to opt-out at the point of signup and later from any marketing materials should they not wish to receive them, so at no stage are they being abused by the platform either.

By being able to track when customers visit, the store not only provides vital information to the business but also allows for the delivery of customized campaigns, which for bricks and mortar stores is brilliant.

Including the new round, Zenreach has raised $50 million to date.

The company said it would use the new funding to grow its headcount, extend the product offering to new verticals, execute on a long-term product roadmap and to expand internationally.

photo credit: Bert Kaufmann via photopin cc