Virtual Piggy focuses on growth initiative
LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy initiated a consumer acquisition campaign to start building its subscriber base. Throughout the past four months, Virtual Piggy has added more than 400,000 new accounts most of which are based in the U.S. and some which were recently added in Canada.
The two main areas for teen and tween purchases online are gaming and clothing and accessories. Virtual Piggy continues to integrate with retailers and game publishers in the U.S. and Europe. In the third quarter, the company entered into co-marketing initiatives with Claire’s and Habbo Hotel.
Virtual Piggy also entered into a marketing agreement with InComm early in the third quarter to deliver digital gift cards through Virtual Piggy’s e-commerce operation. This allows parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends to easily purchase and send digital gift cards from major brands directly to users of Virtual Piggy. These retailers and publishers will be featured in upcoming holiday promotions at Virtual Piggy.
The company also raised $6.4 million during the second quarter through a private placement of securities as well as option and warrant exercises, bringing cash at the end of second quarter to $8.3 million.
“It’s been a very busy two quarters,” said Dr. Jo Webber, CEO and Founder of Virtual Piggy. “We are thrilled to be at the point in our growth where we are onboarding users at continuously accelerating rates, integrating major retailers and gaming publishers, and seeing the adoption and use of our platform on a global basis.”
Consumer acquisition is the core focus for Virtual Piggy in 2013, and the company continues to focus on rapidly growing its user and merchant base, as well as develop channel partner programs with major e-commerce and gaming platforms. In the second quarter, Virtual Piggy launched in Europe, and the first merchants and users will be live using the Virtual Piggy service in Europe in the third quarter of 2013. The company expects to see some revenue generation from the U.S., European and Canadian markets in the third and fourth quarters. However, the company does not expect to generate significant revenue until 2014.