About GiftYa

Jason Wolfe, founder and CEO of GiftYa, created DirectCertificates.com. Did you know that before gift cards, people purchased paper hand-written gift certificates? These gift certificates were large, easily damaged, and prone to counterfeits.

Wolfe purchased the GiftCards.com domain, and rebranded DirectCertificates.com. Due to the many problems concerning gift certificates, the company changed directions and began to focus on selling one product: the first online Visa gift card. At that time, Visa gift cards were not available in retail stores.

Wolfe purchased a 20,000 sq. ft building and began to broaden the GiftCards.com product offering with a new focus on corporate clients. With improvements to the way corporate gift cards were delivered and serviced, the company expanded and became Visa, Mastercard, and Discover certified.

Two friends name Adam Ludwig and Patrick Ledbetter were looking for a way to share drinks with friends and relatives across the country, even when they weren’t in the same place. To solve this problem, they created Give Real. Give Real allows someone to give a gift card, but the value is tied to the recipient’s credit card instead of a separate gift card.

Wolfe was introduced to the Give Real idea through his patent lawyer, Tom Isaacson. Immediately in love with the idea, Wolfe reached out to Ludwig and Ledbetter. Not long after, they agreed to join forces to patent and expand the Give Real concept.

Wolfe decided to launch GiftYa (formerly Give Real), funding the venture with $1M as a separate business unit under the GiftCards.com umbrella. However, at that time the banks would not permit GiftYa to have access to customer purchase transactions. Knowing that the timing was not right, Wolfe decided to table GiftYa for now and wait to launch until the industry was ready.

Now refocused on GiftCards.com, the company grew to more than 5,000 clients, including more than 25% of the Fortune 500. GiftCards.com created more than 2,000 branded rewards cards and sold over $1B in value load. GiftCards.com became the world’s #1 gift card website.

GiftCards.com and OmniCard.com grew to over 100 employees and was sold to Blackhawk Network for $120 million in early January. “I couldn’t imagine a better pairing than with Blackhawk Network,” said Jason Wolfe. “We’re confident that our customers will benefit significantly from the expanded reach, products and services that Blackhawk has to offer.”

After the sale of GiftCards.com, Wolfe refocused his remaining team of 25 employees on GiftYa. The industry had evolved, Wolfe held numerous patents on the idea, and he knew it was time for card-linking to become the next generation of gift cards.

GiftYa was officially launched on December 21, 2018. Our vision is to help move humanity to express care for each other more often, and quick, through beautiful gift giving. GiftYa is disrupting the gift card industry with a much better gifting product than what exists today. GiftYa is a personalized gift for any merchant in the US, sent by text within seconds, and can never lost or stolen.

In 2019, GiftYa grew to 45 team members. We also finalized our tag line: The Thought that Counts. Partnerships and integration with Visa and Mastercard were finalized as well as an integration with Yelp. Our mobile app downloads grew to 20,000 and our website receives about 400 visitors per day as we work through the Beta of GiftYa.

In 2021, GiftYa grew to 75 team members. We grew to 180,000 merchant locations that you can buy a GiftYa for across the USA along with 300 National merchants. We signed several large partnerships to use our Card Linked Gifting platform, and we are making a dent into the gift card marketplace.

Telos Gifting, GiftYa’s parent company, grew to 100 employees and contractors. We are proud to have partnered with over 400 national merchants and 30,000 local merchants across the United States. We also launched the GiftYa platform APIs.

In 2023, we expanded our team to include over 150 talented individuals who are passionate about revolutionizing the gifting industry. Added push to bank with Zelle integrations, enhanced linking capability by 25% of GiftYa users seamlessly linking their Visa, Mastercard, or American Express cards to their GiftYa accounts.