Tillo Acquires Amilon to Expand International Gift Card Distribution

Tillo has acquired Italian gift card and rewards business Amilon , bringing together two distribution networks with different geographic strengths. Announced on 8 September 2026, the deal gives the group a larger base from which to sell gift cards and incentives to multinational buyers. Amilon founders Andrea Verri and Fabio Regazzoni are reinvesting and will continue to lead the business. [S01] What the two companies bring Founded in 2016, Tillo connects businesses buying digital rewards with the brands supplying them. Its platform aggregates gift cards rather than operating the shops where recipients spend them. The acquisition announcement reported connections to more than 4,000 brands across 40 markets and 25 currencies. Its company page separately says more than 4,000 companies use its tools. These are different measures of platform reach, not ownership of participating retailers. [S01] [S02] Amilon adds more than another list of merchants. Its business combines digital reward distribution, software for retailers running gift card programmes, and advertising services. It has operations in Italy, Spain and Poland. Its MYND technology supports the creation, management and distribution of merchant gift cards, while FutureBuyers connects advertising campaigns with shopping credit. That combination gives Amilon relationships on both the retailer and corporate-buyer sides of the market. [S03] The accounts also show that this distribution model sometimes involves holding gift-card inventory. Tillo’s pre-deal consolidated stock rose from £1,102,362 to £2,355,012 between the 2024 and 2025 year-ends. Its accounting policy distinguishes transactions where it purchases codes and takes inventory risk from those where it acts as an agent without that risk. These balances describe the buyer before Amilon joined. [S05] Tillo’s gift-card inventory before the Amilon acquisition Consolidated carrying amounts of gift cards held as stock at each year-end, published in the later September 29 filing. Gift cards held as stock December 31, 2024: 1102362 GBP December 31, 2025: 2355012 GBP Accounting carrying amounts, not annual card sales, catalogue size or Amilon assets. Group columns in note 15; stock is measured at the lower of cost and net realisable value. Reward Cloud FY2025 accounts, filed September 29, 2026 The commercial logic: sell more through existing connections The most concrete opportunity is cross-distribution. A rewards platform already integrated with Tillo can potentially gain a broader regional selection without separately connecting to each supplier. Conversely, a merchant connected through Amilon can reach corporate reward buyers outside its home market. The economic advantage would come from more purchasing flowing through infrastructure and commercial relationships already established by the two businesses, rather than from creating consumer demand from scratch. [S02] [S03] That logic also explains why local expertise matters. Amilon combines retailer technology with employee-benefit and reward distribution; those relationships can make a regional catalogue more useful than a long list of international brand names. For multinational customers, the commercial test will be whether the combined service simplifies procurement and delivers usable local rewards. A larger catalogue alone does not show that integration costs or buyer prices will fall. [S03] The later filing provides a pre-acquisition view of those economics: commissions and platform fees were £23,606,663 in 2025, while licence and transaction fees were £8,232,612. The accounting basis can be gross or net depending on inventory risk, so these categories should not be treated as a uniform commission rate on card value. They establish existing revenue streams, not a measured benefit from combining with Amilon. [S05]