Sprive has raised $10 million in Series A funding to bring more UK homeowners into an app that uses gift-card shopping rewards to help reduce their mortgages. The financing gives a distribution channel for retailer gift cards a larger marketing budget and a second commercial opportunity: retaining customers until they need their next mortgage deal.

Active Partners confirmed its investment on September 21 alongside Ascension, Channel 4 Ventures and the Velocity EIS Technology Fund. The round was reported as £7.7 million by The Intermediary, which also named Wealth Club and Rank Ventures among the new investors. The announcement did not disclose a valuation. [S01] [S04]

The immediate objective is expansion of an existing business, rather than the launch of a new gift card. Jinesh Vohra, Sprive's founder and chief executive, told Finextra that the funding would let it "step up our marketing push significantly and accelerate both customer acquisition and revenue growth". [S05]

A mortgage business built around repeat shopping

Founded in 2019 by Vohra and Saad Hashim, the company launched its app in 2021. Sprive's own account traces the idea to Vohra's experience of trying to make mortgage overpayments. It now combines shopping rewards, optional saving and access to mortgage switching in one service for UK users. [S05] [S07] [S03]

The gift-card mechanism matters. A customer buys a digital shopping card in the app, spends it with the chosen retailer and receives a separate reward credit. That credit can subsequently be applied to the mortgage. Buying a shopping card is therefore distinct from making the mortgage payment: the customer has prepaid value to spend with the retailer and a separate incentive towards debt reduction. [S02] [S03]

Sprive says it charges users no service fee and earns income from shopping rewards and commissions from lenders when customers remortgage through it. Its commercial model consequently extends beyond the margin on distributing shopping cards. [S03]

That combination helps explain the investment case. A mortgage switch is an occasional transaction. Grocery and household purchases can give the same customer a reason to return much more frequently. In our assessment, the shopping feature can maintain a relationship between remortgage decisions while generating revenue in its own right. The company has not disclosed how much shopping activity subsequently converts into mortgage business.

What the growth figures establish

Active Partners reported £328 million of annualised spending through the app, an annual revenue run rate above £18 million and revenue growth of 25 times since January 2025. These are investor-reported operating measures, not a set of audited annual results. [S01]

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What the growth figures establish

Measure disclosed with the funding

Reported figure

What it does and does not show

Series A financing

$10 million

New funding; the announcement did not state a valuation.

Annualised spending through the app

£328 million

A measure extrapolated to a year, not a disclosed completed-year gift-card sales total.

Annual revenue run rate

More than £18 million

Revenue pace across the business, not a separately disclosed gift-card margin.

Registered users

567,000

Registrations, not a count of monthly active shoppers.

Sources: Active Partners for the financing, spending and revenue figures; Finextra for registered users. [S01] [S05]

The distinction between spend and revenue is especially important for gift-card operators assessing Sprive as a channel. Dividing the two figures would not establish a retailer commission rate: the business also earns remortgage commissions, and the announcement supplies neither a revenue breakdown nor matching measurement definitions.

The Intermediary additionally reported Sprive's claim that customers had reduced mortgage balances by £26 million, with potential interest savings exceeding £300 million. Principal already repaid and projected future interest savings describe different outcomes. The latter is not money already returned to customers. [S04]

The commercial test for retailers and investors

For participating retailers, the attraction is access to shoppers with a repeated reason to buy stored value. The reward is attached to a concrete household goal, which could make it more compelling than an undirected points balance. That is a commercial hypothesis, not evidence that the programme produces incremental retail spending.

The unanswered question is how much of the activity is genuinely additional. A retailer may gain a new customer or a larger basket, but it may also fund a reward on spending the customer would have made anyway. The funding announcement does not provide controlled sales uplift, merchant acquisition costs or the split of reward economics between Sprive, its suppliers and the retailer.

For Sprive, a larger marketing budget raises a related question: whether newly acquired users keep shopping after the initial promotion and later use its mortgage service. Registrations and transaction volume show scale; retention, acquisition cost and contribution after rewards would say more about the durability of that growth.

Reward credit is not the same as cash in a bank

Sprive's current terms classify shopping reward credits as promotional credits, not safeguarded e-money while they remain in that form. They cannot be withdrawn to a bank account. Users must meet a minimum transfer threshold shown in the app before instructing a mortgage overpayment. The terms distinguish these credits from money set aside through its separate saving feature. [S02]

This matters when describing the product's promise. A shopping purchase does not necessarily produce an immediate payment to a lender, and the advertised reward should not be presented as an unrestricted cash balance. Mortgage-specific overpayment limits also remain relevant. [S02] [S03]

The financing strengthens a particular use of gift cards: turning routine purchases into a recurring relationship with a financial-services customer. Whether that relationship is equally valuable to retailers, homeowners and Sprive will depend on the repeat behaviour and economics behind the next set of growth figures.

This article is journalistic reporting and analysis, not financial or legal advice.