C
CashStar
Digital Gift Card Programs
About CashStar
CashStar operates as a provider of digital gifting solutions, offering a comprehensive Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for merchants to manage gift card commerce. The company was co-founded in late 2007 by Steven Boal, who also founded Coupons.com, and David Douglas Stone. The founding story is one of a reboot; an earlier California-based version of CashStar incubated at Coupons Inc. was unsuccessful, but its investors provided the remaining $4 million to Boal and Stone to launch a new company in Portland, Maine, focused on virtual gift cards. David Stone, who conceptualized the business from his attic in Falmouth, Maine, became the founding CEO and started building the team in December 2007.
Read full description
The company's core offering is the CashStar Commerce platform, a technology that enables retailers to market, sell, and distribute both digital and physical gift cards directly to consumers (B2C) and businesses (B2B). This platform operates across multiple channels, including web, mobile applications, and social media. CashStar's business model is centered on providing this white-label platform to major brands, allowing them to maintain their branding while managing their gift card programs. The company serves a diverse client base of leading brands in retail, restaurant, and travel, including names like SEPHORA, Starbucks, The Home Depot, and Uber.
The platform's features are designed to handle the entire customer lifecycle, from acquisition to loyalty. For B2B clients, CashStar Business provides tools for managing corporate relationships, offering features like custom and co-branded cards, promotional programs, and funds management to streamline bulk purchases. For B2C engagement, the platform allows for personalized recipient experiences and can be integrated directly into a merchant's native mobile app via an SDK. A significant milestone for CashStar was its acquisition by Blackhawk Network (BHN) in August 2017 for approximately $175 million in cash. This acquisition integrated CashStar's digital platform into BHN's broader suite of branded payment and financial technology solutions, strengthening BHN's position in the first-party digital gift card market. Following the acquisition, CashStar continued to operate as part of Blackhawk's digital and incentives business.
At a glance
- Status
- Acquired
- Founded
- 2007
- Headquarters
- Portland, United States
- Employees
- 20
- Open positions
- None listed
- Dealroom signal
- 82.5/100
- Industry
- Fintech
- Sector
- Fintech, Navigation, Adtech, Risk Management, Delivery, Retail, SaaS, Social, Community, Mapping, Programming, Administration
- Business model
- Marketplace & ecommerce
- Client focus
- b2b
Latest news
Press, funding announcements and product moves mentioning CashStar.
Funding history
Company financing events and reported valuations.
| Deal type | Date | Amount | Valuation | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACQUISITION✓Exit | Sep 2017 | $175M | $175M | Blackhawk Network | ↗ |
| SERIES D✓Equity / VC | Aug 2015 | $15M | $60M | Intel Capital · Allen & Company · Passport Capital · North Hill Ventures | — |
Financials
Revenue, earnings and other financial measures where available. Years marked “E” are estimates.
Growth signals
Latest recorded traffic for CashStar is 6.7M monthly website visits, up 11.7% over the last three months. CashStar's team grew 17.6% over the past year.
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Investors
From Dealroom's funding and investor records, grouped by the round each investor first entered.
Series A6 investors entered at this stage
Passport Capital
Brett J. Rome- SKShamez Kanji
- BMBenjamin Malka
Intel Capital
Steven Boal
Series B and later4 investors entered at this stage
FTV Capital
Quotient Technology- NVNorth Hill Ventures
Allen & Company
Other known investors2 additional known investors
Blackhawk Network
Hercules Capital
Source: Dealroom Talent Intelligence.
Global footprint
team presence
Market sentiment
An AI-synthesised read of the highest-engagement posts about CashStar on X, ranked by likes and reposts, corporate channels excluded.
Reading the room on X — pulling top posts and synthesizing themes…
Source: X recent search ranked by engagement (likes + retweets) · Synthesis by Claude · Cached for 1 hour
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