Cardpool acquired by Safeways gift card division

Cardpool, the San Francisco-based startup that lets people buy, sell and trade unused gift cards, has been acquired by Blackhawk Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of grocery giant Safeway.

Details about the deal are scarce: Cardpool co-founder Anson Tsai declined to tell me how many staff his startup has, only saying that the team will grow significantly now that its part of a larger company. In regards to how much money Cardpool sold for, Tsai said, Unfortunately we are not disclosing financial terms at this time, but all our investors (there are a lot of them) are quite happy.

When we first wrote about Cardpool in March 2010, the company had raised $130,000 in angel funding from a variety of individual investors, including Mitch Kapor and Y Combinator, which is where it was first incubated. Cardpool has apparently grown very quickly since then: The company says it is now processing more than $100,000 in gift cards every day.

And as for Safeways Blackhawk Network? From Cardpools blog post announcing the deal:

Blackhawk Network is the worlds leading provider of gift card, prepaid, telecom, and financial products. Every week, they reach more than 200 million consumers spanning 17 countries in a network of leading grocery, big box, convenience, pharmacy, and specialty stores including Safeway, Kroger, Tesco, Giant Eagle, Ahold, and GiftCardMall.com.

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