Gratafy co-founders Brian Erke and Ryan Halper.
Gratafy co-founders Brian Erke and Ryan Halper.

Gratafy continues to grow and the Seattle startup is raising more investment money to help meet demand.

The three-year-old company, which lets users send specific food and drinks from local restaurants, bars and nightlife venues to friends as gifts, will use the fresh cash to build out its team, accelerate sales and marketing efforts, and expand into new markets.

Previous investors like super angel Rudy Gadre, DoubleDown Interactive co-founder Greg Enell, and Acorn Ventures participated in the new round, which pushes total funding to $6.8 million.

gratafy121Gratafy’s platform is fairly simple for the end user. Those purchasing a gift can scroll through menus on desktop or mobile, and the recipient is notified once the order is placed. When at the restaurant or bar, he or she can then show their server the personal gift code in the Gratafy app to redeem the item.

Gratafy co-founder and CEO Brian Erke told GeekWire that the company is not only seeing traction from users and more than 700 restaurants and bars, but also from brand partners like Anheuser-Busch that use Gratafy to get products in the hands of new customers and have the ability to track detailed analytics based on the integration.

In addition, Gratafy also gives restaurants and bars a way to sell gifts directly on their websites and create loyalty campaigns that reward customers with free or discounted items.

“The growth lately has been fast and will actually get quite a bit faster in the next year,” Erke noted.

Gratafy started in Seattle, but has since debuted in seven additional cities. It plans on reaching 25-to-30 cities by the end of 2016.

“Now that we’ve seen product market fit and demand from merchant partners and brand partners, we are accelerating our sales and distribution,” Erke said. “A big focus is getting the product out there and entering new markets.”

The company, which has just under 30 employees, is also moving into a new 6,500 square-foot office space at Smith Tower in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood to help accommodate its growth.

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