Bilt Technologies, a fintech best known for letting its users earn reward points in exchange for charging their rent to a credit card, has agreed to acquire the sports loyalty technology firm Lava in a $300 million deal, the companies said Monday.
“Sports have an extraordinary ability to bring people together, yet the relationship between teams, fans and their neighborhoods has barely been tapped,” Bilt founder and CEO Ankur Jain said in a statement. “Lava has built incredible technology connecting sports organizations with their fans. Bringing that together with Bilt opens up an entirely new frontier for what membership and loyalty can mean.”
Lava’s platform harnesses more than 300 technology adapters connecting point-of-sale, identity, loyalty, ticketing and payments – through which sports teams and entertainment venues can recognize customers, cater personalized benefits, manage loyalty programs and partner in real-time experiences, the company said.
It boasts relationships with 56 professional sports franchises, including the NFL’s Detroit Lions, NBA’s Denver Nuggets and NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.
“Teams have built extraordinary loyalty, and Bilt brings the network to make that loyalty valuable across everyday life,” said Lava co-founder Vivek Ranadivé, who also owns the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. “Lava joining Bilt will help our partners turn sports fandom into a neighborhood economy that works for fans, teams and local businesses every day.”
With the deal, Bilt aims to combine its artificial intelligence agents with Lava’s real-time engagement technology to create personalized benefits through local businesses, based on a web of shared data points.
Bilt, for its part, touts about 7 million members in its network of residential communities, and partnerships with about 50,000 merchants.
The Lava deal may also represent a pivot that allows Bilt to move past a public breakup with one of its largest partners, Wells Fargo.
The bank last year decided to cut short a credit-card partnership with Bilt over concerns that the tie-up was losing money, according to The Wall Street Journal. The partnership was initially slated to run through 2029, but the fracture gained even more notoriety when new credit cards were issued to dozens of customers who opted to close their accounts – just ahead of the alliance’s end.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Bilt in June to reimburse roughly 500 customers for fees charged amid the company’s transition to a new bank partner.
Wen Miao, Lava’s CEO and co-founder, said he’s excited for the chance to take his company’s technology past the confines of the sports venue.
“Loyalty shouldn’t begin and end on game day,” Miao said Monday. “Together, we have an opportunity to redefine how loyalty works, not just on game day, but throughout everyday life.”
