The loyalty program, reimagined - AI-driven rewards that feel more like a game than a punch card.
Most loyalty programs are a spreadsheet wearing a logo. Customers earn points they forget they have, redeemable for rewards they rarely claim. Hang, a software company based in New York, started from a different premise: that the tools brands use to keep customers have not kept pace with the customers themselves.
Founded in 2021 by Matt Smolin, Chad Fox and Brian Bendett, Hang builds an AI-powered marketing and loyalty platform for consumer brands. In place of static points, it offers gamified rewards - branded minigames, dynamic quests and personalized one-to-one offers - stitched to a brand's existing point-of-sale and customer systems. The company describes the product as an “autonomous marketing system,” a single platform meant to replace a stack of disconnected tools.
The pitch found early ears. In July 2022, Hang launched publicly alongside a $16 million Series A led by the crypto-focused fund Paradigm, with a cap table that read like a group chat of famous names: Tiger Global, Kevin Durant's Thirty Five Ventures, MrBeast's Night Ventures, and founders from Allbirds, Warby Parker and Harry's.
What Hang sold investors then and what it sells brands now are not identical. It launched as an NFT-powered membership tool at the peak of Web3 enthusiasm, then rebuilt its positioning around AI as that market cooled. The through-line held: keep customers coming back, and make the experience feel personal.
Introducing Hang, the future of membership for brands.
*Figure reported by the company; treat as approximate.
Two problems, really. First, customer data at most brands is a mess - duplicated, scattered across a POS here and an e-commerce tool there. Second, the loyalty layer sitting on top of that data is generic: everyone earns the same points at the same rate for the same rewards, and engagement flatlines.
Hang's answer starts underneath, with what it calls self-cleaning data, then layers AI-driven segmentation and gamified rewards on top so that offers can be personal and timely rather than one-size-fits-all.
Where traditional loyalty software manages points and punch cards, Hang leans on mechanics borrowed from gaming - minigames, dynamic quests and loot-box-style rewards - and an AI engine that adjusts reward probabilities in real time to chase engagement and return on spend.
The wager is that fun and relevance drive repeat visits better than accrued points. Competitors in the space include LoyaltyLion, Thanx, Punchh, Paytronix and restaurant-focused tools like Momos and itsaCheckmate.
Hang bundles its platform into modules that span the customer lifecycle - from the raw data at the bottom to the reward a customer sees at the top.
AI-driven, gamified loyalty using branded minigames, dynamic quests and personalized rewards instead of static points.
One-to-one offers and promotions tuned to how each customer actually behaves.
Self-cleaning customer data infrastructure that unifies and de-duplicates records across sources.
AI-assisted campaign creation and automation across channels.
AI-driven segmentation that groups customers for sharper targeting.
Real-time performance views plus automated alerts when customer behavior shifts.
Hang's customer list has drifted decisively toward food and beverage. Today it counts fast-casual and specialty brands like Just Salad, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, Boba Guys, Killer Burger, Taziki's, Just Poke, Hattie B's, Vitality Bowls, Call Your Mother and Roam Artisan Burgers.
Its earlier, NFT-era roster skewed larger and broader - Budweiser, Bleacher Report, Pinkberry, the festival group Superfly, Ulta Beauty, Cinemark, ASICS and the music collective 88rising among them. The shift toward restaurants tracks a clear market fit: high-frequency businesses where a second visit is won or lost in the details.
Hang sits in the loyalty and customer-engagement corner of martech, competing on personalization and gamification rather than raw points math.
Directional illustration of Hang's stated vertical focus, not company-reported revenue splits.
In July 2022, Hang closed a $16 million Series A led by Paradigm. The round bankrolled its launch and hiring, and its investor list drew outsized attention.
The business model, plainly: Hang sells subscription access to its platform to consumer brands, priced by scale of use and wired into each brand's POS and CRM. Its expertise sits at the intersection of customer data, personalization and behavioral engagement - the hard part being not the rewards themselves but the plumbing that makes them feel individual.
Matt Smolin, Chad Fox and Brian Bendett start Hang in New York to reinvent brand loyalty.
Hang launches as an NFT-powered membership platform with a Series A led by Paradigm.
Signs consumer brands across food & beverage, retail and entertainment while building out the platform.
Repositions around gamified, AI-driven loyalty for restaurants and consumer brands, stepping back from Web3 branding.
Expands into a full AI marketing platform with self-cleaning data, smart segments and vertical AI.
Sources: hang.com, TechCrunch, The Block, Built In LA, Crunchbase, Tracxn, getLatka, CB Insights, LinkedIn, Instagram, Medium. Figures such as revenue and per-user spend are third-party or company-reported estimates and should be treated as approximate.