Rakuten Rewards ( ), formerly known as Ebates, is a cash-back and shopping rewards company. Its revenue comes from

affiliate network An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers ( affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs. It allows website publishers to more easily find and participate in affiliate programs which are suitable for their website (and thus g ...

links. Members of the site click through affiliate links before shopping at a retailer's site.

History

Rakuten Rewards was founded as Ebates in 1998 in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...

, by two former deputy district attorneys, Alessandro Isolani and Paul Wasserman. Funded by the

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firm

Foundation Capital Foundation Capital is a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. The firm was founded in 1995, and in 2012 managed more than $2.4 billion in investment capital. As of 2023, the firm has over $6 billion in assets under management. Histor ...

, Ebates.com was launched on 3 May 1999, offering up to 25% cash back from about 40 online retailers. In September 2014, Ebates was acquired by the Japanese e-commerce company

Rakuten is a Japanese technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around the online retail marketplace Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing Fintech, digital content and communi ...

for US$1 billion. In 2019, the Ebates brand was phased out and replaced with Rakuten Rewards.

Acquisitions

Services/tools

Logos

File:Ebates Logo 2017.svg, 2017 File:Ebates Logo 2018.svg, 2018 File:Ebates Logo 2019.svg, 2019 (US, before renaming) File:Ebates.ca Logo 2019.svg, 2019 (Canada, before renaming) File:Rakuten Global Brand Logo.svg, 2019 (US and Canada, after renaming)

References

{{Customer loyalty programs American companies established in 1998 Internet properties established in 1998 1998 establishments in California Companies based in San Mateo, California Rakuten 2014 mergers and acquisitions American subsidiaries of foreign companies Cashback and rebate Reward, cashback and comparison-shopping digital platforms E-commerce websites