[April 30, 2012]

Wrapp Brings Social Gifting to U.S. with Major Merchants

Europe's social gifting phenom Wrapp is starting service today in the U.S. with some of the world's largest retailers, offering Facebook (News - Alert) users a new fun and easy way to give, receive and redeem free gifts and promotional gift cards, and allow their friends to contribute to the presents.

"Wrapp is the ultimate win, win, win app," said Hjalmar Winbladh, Wrapp's CEO. "You and I get to give our friends free gifts and promotional gift cards from great retailers, the gifts we give are stored in our friends' phones so they're always with them when they want to buy something they really want, and the merchants get a proven customer acquisition and retention platform built on Wrapp's friend-to-friend marketing for conducting performance-based campaigns."

Free gifts and promotional gift cards are now available through Wrapp in the U.S. from:

• Björn Borg - designer underwear
• Brooklyn Industries - innovative designer clothes for men and women
• Fab - daily design inspirations and sales
• GANT - American sportswear with a European touch
• Gap - casual, optimistic, American style
• H&M - family fashion and quality at the best price
• Happy Socks - designer socks online
• Rovio Entertainment - creator of the globally successful Angry Birds franchise
• Sephora - unparalleled beauty paradise of makeup, skincare, fragrances, hair care and more
• SpaFinder Wellness - feel-good possibilities from massage to yoga, Pilates and fitness classes
• The Wall Street Journal - the country's largest newspaper and leading business publication
• Threadless - amazing graphic tees from a global community of designers
• Warby Parker - eyewear with a purpose
• Wayfair - furniture, lighting, cookware, and more for the home
• WeSC - street style cothing and accessories

"At Gap we're constantly trying to create experiences that our customers will feel are worth engaging in and sharing with their friends," said Art Peck, president of Gap North America. "Working with Wrapp creates a convenient and innovative way for our customers to give free promotional gifts to friends and family using Facebook. We know our customers spend a lot of time on Facebook, and we think the Wrapp gifts are something our shoppers will love to give and receive."

Added Karl-Johan Persson, president and CEO of H&M: "Wrapp has created an ingenious way to use mobile phones and social networks to get people online that we want as customers, actually into our stores and making purchases. And one of the things we like best is that with Wrapp, H&M is being recommended to you by your friends."

To start sending free gifts and promotional gift cards to friends and family, download the Wrapp mobile app from Apple's (News - Alert) App Store, the Android Market, or use the web app at www.wrapp.com, and connect it to your Facebook account.

Swedish Roots

Wrapp began its unique brand of social gifting in Sweden in November last year. In January this year it received $10.5 million in Series A funding from Greylock Partners and Atomico resulting in LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (News - Alert) and Skype founder Niklas Zennström joining Wrapp's board of directors. In March Wrapp took its service to Norway and the U.K. And earlier this month opened offices in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Australia, Japan and elsewhere around the world.

During the last four months nearly 180,000 people have given their Facebook friends over 1.5 million free promotional gift cards that could be redeemed in stores operated by nearly 60 major retailers in Europe.

Participating merchants report that each sale averages four to six times the value of the free promotional gift card they let Wrapp users give to their friends.

Wrapp was started last year by Winbladh and a small team of entrepreneurs, including Andreas Ehn, Spotify's first chief technology officer; Magnus Hult, who played a key role in building Spotify's original technology and platform; Aage Reerslev, founder of mobile browser maker Squace; Leo Giertz, founder of Barefoot Hackers, one of Sweden's most acclaimed iPhone (News - Alert) development shops; Carl Fritjofsson, strategy advisor to Groupon.se; and Fabian Månsson, former CEO of H&M and Eddie Bauer, who now serves as Wrapp's chairman. Winbladh co-founded Sendit, the first mobile Internet company, where he served as CEO, and took it public in 1997, before being acquired by Microsoft (News - Alert). In 2006 Winbladh co-founded Rebtel, now the world's largest independent mobile VoIP company.

About Wrapp

Wrapp is a social gifting service for celebrating friends' occasions with free and paid gifts from attractive brands. Wrapp allows friends to contribute to gifts, and makes it fun and easy to give, receive and redeem using mobile devices and the web. Founded in the first half of 2011 by a group of serial entrepreneurs, Wrapp is based in Stockholm, with offices in the U.K., U.S., Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Taiwan. Celebrate with friends every day at www.wrapp.com.

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