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Last updated on October 26, 2026
Gavin Dein, Founder of Reward, reveals how an idea to help football fans grew into a global platform that helps tens of millions of people get more from their everyday spending.
For Gavin Dein, Founder of Reward, entrepreneurship is in his DNA. His grandparents were entrepreneurs, and his father, David Dein, is the former vice-chairman and co-owner of Arsenal Football Club, and one of the architects of the Premier League.
Even as a child himself, Gavin’s entrepreneurial ambition developed early. After a family friend bought him a subscription to the Investors Chronicle, he would pour over the penny stock pages at the back, decide whether he liked what a company did, then follow its share price.
Gavin’s early experiences led him to found Reward, the global commerce media and customer engagement business, which today powers loyalty programmes for seven of the top 10 banks, including Revolut, Barclays, NatWest, and Zilch.
Reward also runs programmes across 15 countries worldwide, independently and on behalf of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
Earlier this year, Gavin sold Reward to Rezolve AI for $230m, the culmination of a 25 year journey from launch to exit.
From Penny Stocks to the Premier League
Gavin traces Reward’s origins to his time working at Arsenal. “Ticket prices were rising and fans were being priced out of the stadium,” he recalls.
That sparked an idea to help people pay for their passions. After seeing how LetsBuyIt.com used collective buying to secure better prices, he set out to do the same for football and sports fans.
Reward went on to pioneer card linked rewards technology where customers get cashback automatically when they shop at a participating retailer with their linked bank card, without the need for vouchers or codes.
The move beyond sport came when Barclays, then title sponsor of the Premier League, asked Reward to run a customer engagement programme. “Once we got into banking, we didn’t look back,” he says.
Today, Reward works with the world’s largest retailers and banks, and has returned more than $2.5b in cashback rewards to consumers globally by February 2026.
“The business grew well beyond football,” Gavin says, “but the underlying idea stayed with us: helping people get more from money they were already spending.”
Building the Platform Behind Bank Cashback
Gavin was CEO of Reward for 23 years before becoming chairman, by which point the business had nearly 250 people across Belfast, London, Dubai, and Singapore – a feat he knew would not have been possible alone. Previous investors include $30b tech business, Verisk, and, Experian plc, the FTSE 100 data and technology group.
Through its banking relationships, Reward could see almost 50% of consumer spending in the UK. Reward’s technology helps merchants acquire customers, use spending insights to inform marketing decisions, and drive measurable incremental sales both online and in store. However, for years, the challenge was persuading retailers that this data mattered.
Then Covid hit and the way people spent money started to change.
“Merchants, large and small, were asking where all their customers had gone, how to win them back, and how to attract more online,” Gavin recalls. “We went from explaining why our data mattered, to merchants calling because they needed the answers.”
Why Reward Chose Rezolve AI
In 2024, Reward agreed a two-stage deal with Experian plc who had the data and marketing capabilities to match with Reward’s ability to connect advertising with actual consumer spending.
The emerging AI boom brought another opportunity: agentic commerce, where AI agents shop on a customer’s behalf.
Reward already brought tens of millions of customers, established banking and retailer relationships, and the ability to show the extra revenue it generated for merchants. What the opportunity needed, Gavin reflects, was a way to connect that intelligence to customers, merchants, and actual spending.
That’s where Dan Wagner came in, the founder of Rezolve AI, a London-headquartered, Nasdaq-listed company which sells AI software to retailers and brands. What started as an informal conversation led to an offer.
“The strategic fit was clear,” Gavin says. “Rezolve’s technology could help more of those customers complete a purchase.”
Experian stepped aside in the best interests of Reward and its shareholders. The sale to Rezolve AI was finalised in February 2026 for $230m in cash – one of the UK’s largest technology transactions of the year.
Gavin says his business partner of 20 years, Sheikh Mohammed El Khereiji, was invaluable during the acquisition process.
“He reminded me that Reward needed to survive and thrive after the sale. His advice was to do what was right for the vision and trust that shareholders would understand the reasoning.”
Gavin’s takeaway was to judge a buyer on what they could do with the business, not just what they were prepared to pay for it. “You want a strong outcome for shareholders and a business with a future beyond the transaction,” he explains.
Lessons From 25 Years as a Founder
Gavin predicts that agentic commerce will shape Reward’s future, and he expects it to go mainstream within the next 12 months.
“I believe this is the easiest time in history to build a global business. Don’t be afraid to give it a go. It could change your life,” he says.
For now, he’s prioritising his family and health. “As a founder, you give everything during the day, then spend the night going over mistakes and thinking about what comes next. It’s a 24/7 job, and I did it for 25 years.”
From an idea to help Arsenal fans pay for their passions to a platform used by tens of millions, Gavin says Reward was never built on belief alone.
“Successful founders believe so strongly in their vision that other people can see both the opportunity and their part in it,” he says. “The point is not simply that you believe. It’s that you give others a reason to believe and build it with you.”
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