MyVoucherCodes acquires musical duo's food and drink app Happiour

MyVoucherCodes has acquired Happiour, a daily food and drink app created in 2015 by musical brothers and serial-entrepreneurs, Hal and Sam Stokes.

Happiour is used by over 100k users in London and has partnered with over 150 businesses, from local independents to major chains, including LEON, Starbucks and Jamie’s Italian. MyVoucherCodes is said to help scale the business by promoting the app to its seven million UK customers.

Hal and Sam were professional musicians for several years in Los Angeles in their band, ‘The Thieves’, as well as playing for Justin Hawkins (The Darkness’ lead singer).

Hal Stokes, co-founder of Happiour, said: “We built Happiour to help food and beverage vendors increase sales and enable consumers to enjoy a sense of discovery and reward.

“The average commuter spends over £10 a day on food and snacks, so we created a way of giving them great discounts and making their ‘everyday’ better. We are very excited to be working with the MyVoucherCodes team.

“We always thought that some of the best grassroots marketers are musicians, which is what led us here. We toured all over the US and were early adopters of social media, using digital tools to build a fanbase, so we know how to engage people online.”

Hal was global head of music for UK network Bebo in 2007, before the brothers created Punktillo in 2009, one of the first social media agencies in the UK. Their clients included Pret, Moet Hennessy and YO! Sushi. The agency was acquired by Essence Digital (WPP) in 2011.

Happiour focuses on vendors creating real-time, geo-located offers in order to drive local footfall and sales. It is designed with social interaction of customers in mind, through sharing and searching for relevant food & drink deals nearby.

Retailers have the opportunity to create exclusive offers directly on Happiour, providing solutions to problems both independent and large food and beverage retailers face.

For example; attracting new customers, promoting new or seasonal products, helping to shoulder peak hours, exploiting last-minute opportunities and reducing end of day waste.

Chris Reilly, managing director of Monitise Content, commented: “Happiour is a dynamic and innovative platform that gives users what they want, when they want it.

“‘Local’ is the big nut that high-street merchants are trying to crack and Happiour provides a genuine solution to this problem. We are looking forward to working with the entire Happiour team to grow the business and build on its success.”

Monitise Content will provide Happiour with resource to grow their consumer and merchant audience ahead of Happiour’s re-launch in the New Year.

Happiour investors include serial entrepreneur and Bebo founder Michael Birch, Downing Ventures and Mark Sheehan, guitarist for The Script.

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