Grover and OST Announce Partnership to Develop Blockchain-Powered Loyalty for Subscribing to Technology Products
Grover makes technology accessible to everyone, by enabling people to subscribe to tech products monthly instead of buying them.
Today we welcome Grover as our latest Partner Company.
Grover, the leading Berlin based tech products subscription service provider, has entered into a strategic partnership with OST in order to develop a Blockchain based Loyalty program by leveraging OST technology and the OpenST and OpenST Mosaic Protocols.
Michael Cassau, Founder and CEO of Grover discuss the partnership with Jose Mota on the OST LIVE podcast series:
Founded in 2015, Grover makes technology accessible to everyone, by enabling people to subscribe to tech products monthly instead of buying them or financing them. Grover has raised total funding of €41m to date as they have scaled the business and market helping consumers prioritize access over ownership to access the technology they need and want. In addition to direct online subscriptions, Grover has partnerships with several large retailers including the MediaMarkt Saturn Group, Europe’s leading consumer electronics retailer to ensure more consumers have access to this groundbreaking service. Through partners Grover’s service is also available at the POS allowing customers to take their rental tech home right away.
Grover already disrupts the traditional tech retail market by redefining ownership through making products available to consumers on a subscription basis and aims to further differentiate by openly embracing the opportunity presented by Blockchain. Traditionally loyalty points are not physically and directly owned by end-consumers, but blockchain based loyalty tokens enable digital communities to be formed around brands that customers love.
OST powers blockchain economies for forward thinking businesses. OST’s easy to use APIs, SDKs, dashboards, wallets, and protocols provide everything companies like Grover need to integrate Branded Tokens into their apps.
Loyalty is an ideal use case for taking advantage of the unique technological ability of blockchain to place the ownership of a valuable digital item into the hands of an end-consumer. Companies like Grover can leverage OST products and expertise to build strong communities around their own branded blockchain based loyalty points.
Grover plans to launch an OST-powered Branded Token in 2019.
For Grover, partnering with OpenST and OST is an opportunity to improve UX and address our customers’ needs by implementing a token to reward loyal customers for key actions that benefit the Grover community. We are excited to partner and bridge the gap between blockchain technology and mainstream consumer applications as together we change the landscape of finance and ownership.
— Michael Cassau, Founder and CEO of Grover.
Grover have already proven an innovative business and have a large, fast growing customer base. We believe Blockchain loyalty tokens will help them supercharge their customer engagement and create even more value for consumers.
— Dr. Chris Dark, Co-Founder of OST and Board Director of the OpenST Foundation.
Our product and engineering teams are constantly innovating and finding new ways to delight our community of users. Blockchain based loyalty allows Grover to align our strategic objectives with tangible rewards and incentives that shift consumer behaviour towards Grover’s circular economic model.
— Johann Jenson, Global Head of Product at Grover.
About Grover
Grover brings the freedom of renting to the consumer electronics market, offering a simple subscription model for the best in tech. Grover is the first financing company for the circular economy, breaking the link between ownership and use by buying products so people don’t have to. Customers get access to a multitude of gadgets, including smartphones, laptops, virtual reality (VR) gear, cameras, wearables and smart home appliances on getgrover.com or through Grover’s partner network. Three of Germany’s ten biggest e-commerce sites, including Europe’s leading electronics retailer, MediaMarkt, and >70 offline stores offer rentals with Grover to their customers. Grover’s service offers freedom of choice and full flexibility so that customers can use, switch, buy, or return products depending on their needs — and maximize the value of their tech in their lives.
Grover was founded by Michael Cassau in 2015 as an answer to the access over ownership movement and has experienced 10x growth in 2017. The company employs over 50 people from 17 nationalities in the Berlin HQ to help people get more out of life.
About OST
OST blockchain infrastructure empowers new economies for mainstream businesses and emerging DApps. OST leads development of the OpenST Protocol, a framework for tokenizing businesses. In September 2018 OST introduced the OpenST Mosaic Protocol for running meta-blockchains to scale Ethereum applications to billions of users. OST KIT is a full-stack suite of developer tools, APIs and SDKs for managing blockchain economies. OST Partners reach more than 350 million end-users. OST has offices in Berlin, New York, Hong Kong, and Pune. OST is backed by leading institutional equity investors including Tencent, Greycroft, Vectr Ventures, 500 Startups.
