Open Loyalty featured in XYZ: "The Polish startup taking on the tech giants"

XYZ, the Polish business publication backed by InPost founder Rafał Brzoska's fund, has published a long-form feature on Open Loyalty: "65 million users and $10 billion in turnover. A Polish startup challenges the tech giants".

In it, CEO and co-founder Cezary Olejarczyk explains how a team of about 60 people competes for large clients with SAP, Oracle and Salesforce, and where the company is heading next.

Why XYZ calls Open Loyalty an unusual startup

In XYZ's words, Open Loyalty is an unusual startup: profitable at EBITDA level, with a single funding round and no venture capital fund among its investors. The feature also notes that the company has been global from day one, with 99% of its business now coming from outside Poland, mostly from Western Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific.

XYZ then traces how Open Loyalty started as an internal product at the software house Divante, became an independent company in 2021, and grew to this scale:

• More than 70 companies from 30 countries, including Heineken, Aldo and Intersport, run loyalty programs on Open Loyalty, in over 60 countries.
• More than 65 million people have registered in those programs, and around 17 million are active each month.
• The platform processes 83 million transactions and 1.3 billion customer behaviors a year, and clients launched 19,000 campaigns in a single year.
• According to XYZ, the revenue generated through these programs is around $4 billion a year, and Open Loyalty's goal is to grow it to $10 billion in the coming years.

The business model has changed as well. Open Loyalty used to sell a loyalty engine to developers; today it talks to finance, marketing and loyalty leaders about which metrics should grow and by how much, with pricing tied to the results clients get.

A Polish star of the 2026 World Cup

A dedicated section of the feature covers Open Loyalty's contribution to the 2026 World Cup in the United States: the United States Soccer Federation built its Insider loyalty program on Open Loyalty technology.

Cezary told XYZ that clients often mention having heard about this work: "It gives us credibility and opens conversations with the biggest football clubs in Europe."

Competing with SAP, Oracle and Salesforce

Since Open Loyalty can't match these giants on marketing budget or headcount, XYZ notes, it competes on other strengths, which Cezary named as flexibility, fast decisions and close work with clients. He also addressed in-house builds, which AI has made easier and which sometimes bring clients back to Open Loyalty after a trial:

"Clients pay us for delivering the result, not for a piece of code."

Cezary Olejarczyk, CEO and co-founder of Open Loyalty

He explained that the advantage lies in years of expertise and data: mechanics proven in many countries, tested settlement and reporting systems, fraud prevention, and knowing how to use those tools to reach the intended result.

About XYZ

XYZ launched in 2024 as a subscription-based business and economics publication, founded by Grzegorz Nawacki, former editor-in-chief of the Polish economic publication Puls Biznesu, and backed by RiO, the investment fund of InPost founder Rafał Brzoska. A newsroom of around 30 journalists covers business, markets and technology, publishing fewer pieces than most news sites so each one gets more depth. The Open Loyalty feature was written by Mariusz Bartodziej, who covers retail, FMCG, M&A and private equity and venture capital funds.

Read the full article

The full interview, including Open Loyalty's growth plans and expert commentary on the loyalty market, is available on XYZ (subscription required):

65 mln użytkowników i 10 mld dolarów obrotów. Polski startup rzuca wyzwanie technologicznym gigantom

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