Ibotta

Ibotta, Inc. is an American mobile technology company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 2011, the company offers cash back rewards on various purchases through its Ibotta Performance Network and consumer properties, including mobile app, website, and browser extension. Ibotta partners with CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands and network publishers to provide these rewards. As of 2024, the company operates solely in the United States and offers rewards on categories such as groceries, online shopping, general merchandise, and more, including alcohol purchases in certain locations. The company's rewards-as-a-service offering, the Ibotta Performance Network, went live in 2021.

In August 2019, Ibotta received a $1 billion valuation after its Series D funding, and in 2023, the company surpassed $1.5 billion cash rewards paid to over 50 million consumers since the company's founding. Ibotta became a publicly traded company in April 2024 with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Founding through early 2019
Ibotta was founded by current CEO Bryan Leach. The company was incorporated in 2011 and the app launched to both the App Store and Google Play stores in 2012. In December 2012 Ibotta celebrated the signup of its 100,000th user. Early investors included entrepreneur and computer scientist Jim Clark and Tom “TJ” Jermoluk, Chairman of @Home Network.

In 2015, Ibotta expanded beyond item level grocery, adding the ability to get cash back on in-store retail purchases. In 2016, in-app mobile commerce began, allowing users to navigate from the Ibotta app to its partners' apps to earn cash back on purchases.

In 2016 with a Series C investment, Ibotta had raised over $73 million in funding. In March of that year, Ibotta partnered with Anheuser-Busch (BUD) to offer cash back for adults who purchased its products. In May, the company partnered with LiveRamp so that companies could use their CRM data to create segmented, personalized campaigns. At the time, the company had around 200 full- and part-time employees and moved from offices in Lower Downtown Denver (LoDo) to a 40,000-square-foot office in the central Denver business district. A year later, the company had to expand to a second floor as it added almost another 100 employees.

In 2017 Ibotta added cash back for Uber to its app as well as cash back rewards for online and mobile purchases.

In 2018, Ibotta was listed on the Inc. 5,000 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. A year later, in January 2019, the Ibotta app had been downloaded more than 30 million times and users had been credited $500 million in cash back rewards. That year, Ibotta was the largest mobile company in Colorado with 6 million monthly active users.

August 2019 to present
In August 2019, Ibotta was valued at $1 billion, following a Series D round of funding. The round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

2019 was also the year the company introduced Pay with Ibotta, which allowed users to complete purchases at key retailers on the Ibotta app and earn instant cash back in the process. With that new service, users were able to enter their purchase total and use a QR code to checkout and receive immediate cash back.

In 2020, the company partnered with Trees for the Future to plant up to 1 million trees as part of an Earth Month campaign to raise awareness about the waste of unused paper coupons. In response to  the COVID-19 pandemic, Ibotta partnered with top brands in their “Here to Help” campaign and together committed over $10 million in cash back to American consumers. The company added the ability to earn cash back from online grocery pick-up and delivery orders.

Later that year, Ibotta also started its free Thanksgiving program, providing users with 100% cash back on select groceries needed for a Thanksgiving meal. By 2022, the company had provided approximately 10 million Thanksgiving meals.

In 2021, Ibotta acquired the company OctoShop (originally InStok), a shopping browser extension company founded by Rithwik Pattikonda, Darshan Bhatta, and Sriram Hariharan, in a multimillion dollar deal. The OctoShop app enables users to compare prices across stores, and set restock and price-drop alerts.

In April 2022, Ibotta launched the Ibotta Performance Network. This network of publishers, consisting of retailers like Walmart and Dollar General and third parties like Shell, provides offers to their customers. This pay per sales, or success based performance network reaches over 200 million consumers.

On April 18, 2024, Ibotta had its initial public offering (IPO), becoming a publicly traded company trading under the ticker symbol IBTA. Ibotta trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Athletic Partnerships
Ibotta became the official jersey patch partner of the New Orleans Pelicans for the 2020–2021 season. In September 2022, the partnership was renewed for the next three seasons.

In March 2023, F1 driver Logan Sargeant, the first U.S. racer to compete in F1 since 2015, partnered with Ibotta. The Ibotta logo is displayed on Sargeant's racing helmet. A few months later, in June, Ibotta partnered with UConn basketball player Paige Bueckers and a number of other female collegiate athletes through its female collegiate athlete collaboration with Pearpop and the Brandr Group (TBG).

Ibotta became the official jersey patch partner of the 2023 NBA champion Denver Nuggets for the 2023–2024 season.