A client meeting between Cafescreen founder Ruwan Weerasooriya and Jack Matthews, then with Fairfax, has led to the two teaming for Weerasooriya’s latest venture.
The former head of metro media at Fairfax has invested in Australian start-up Rewardle and joined as chairman.
Both had kept in touch since the business meeting, despite new careers: CafeScreen – with which Fairfax had been an advertiser – was sold to oOh!Media in 2012 and Matthews had been showing interest in several tech start-ups after leaving Fairfax last June.
And they can still meet up over a short black: Rewardle is another coffee shop business, digitising the retail industry’s loyalty programmes, with scope to go further into digital engagement and data. Matthews says he was impressed with Weerasooriya’s operation and looks forward to working with him to bring big data to small retailers. “It is a huge opportunity and Rewardle is by far the leading player in the space,” he says.
Weerasooriya says Matthews’ involvement “will go a long way in validating the model and will accelerate our growth, particularly with progressing corporate partnerships”.