Giuseppe and Roberto's Startup for a Healthier and Affordable Lifestyle

There's a lot of Bocconi in GreenJinn, an English cashback couponing app that has just launched its third round of funding, to raise £600,000 through the CrowdCube platform. The business idea of the two entrepreneurs, Giuseppe Licari and Roberto Amerighi, graduates of 2013 in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology (Emit) and Economics and Social Sciences (Des), stemmed from their graduation theses and during the launch period, in their London offices, there's always been a Bocconi intern.

Licari, CEO of the company, graduated a few months before his friend, with a thesis on the possible replacement of barcode with rfid labels in supermarkets, but the idea he was caressing, even while working as a consultant, related to coupons, organic products and mobile phones. "I remember that one Saturday, in a bar near Bocconi, I started telling my friend Roberto, who was completing his studies, about the idea", says Licari. "We talked from 10am to 4pm and I must have aroused his interest, if he redirected his thesis to the coupon market. He then found work in the financial advisory sector, but we started to develop the idea together".

As the idea became more solid, they left their jobs and moved to Berlin, the startups continental capital. "We deemed the Italian couponing market not yet mature enough and chose to move where we we judged to have more possibilities", explains Licari. A business trip to the United States proved decisive. The two young entrepreneurs met Guerrino De Luca, Logitech's Chairman, who decided to invest in GreenJinn, provided that it would move its headquarters to London, a financial market that he knows better than Berlin.

GreenJinn has now been in operation for a year in Great Britain and has 40,000 users who have downloaded the app and can use it to get cashback on the purchase of wellness and health-related products ("we help people to afford a healthier lifestyle", say the founders). The mechanism is simple and only involves the use of a mobile phone: customers look for active promotions in their favorite supermarket and, as a proof of purchase, they send GreenJinn a snap of the receipt. The cashback, which does not bind customers to any subsequent purchase, comes by PayPal or bank account. "Our trade agreement is with the manufacturers", explains the company's CEO, "but we involve large retailers, and not neighborhood stores, because of volume and scalability, because their receipts are better readable with our technology and because, in the future, it would be interesting to propose coupons on their own brands".

In the two previous rounds of financing, the two entrepreneurs raised £385,000 and the current crowdfunding campaign, which saw investors participating also from Italy, should serve to better structure the company.

So far Licari has taken care of strategy and technology, Amerighi of finance and marketing, "with the help of a person for marketing and two developers for the technical part", continues the CEO. "At the end of the round we should be able to involve 3-4 key people, whose profiles we have in mind, and we have interesting development ideas, which concern not only the big retailers but also the online marketplace".