Upside Announces A-Frame Ventures Acquisition & Additional Hiring amid COVID-19

WASHINGTON AND CHICAGO— APRIL 16, 2020—GetUpside, a digital platform that personalizes brick-and-mortar commerce, today announced that it has acquired A-Frame Ventures and brought two new executives on to the team. Even amid the current COVID-19 environment, GetUpside will continue to hire locally in the Chicago, D.C., and Austin markets.

Meredith Sadlowski, former Senior Vice President of Branded Sales and Marketing at Gulf Oil, has joined GetUpside as President of Fuel and C-store. Additionally, Arman Ghosh, A-Frame’s co-founder and managing partner, is now the President of Restaurants and Revenue Operations at GetUpside. The acquisition of A-Frame and their team will enable GetUpside to expand into new verticals to drive more value and experiences for consumers and merchants.

“The mission of GetUpside is to help all communities thrive. We started in gas and have over 19,000 amazing merchant partners and millions of consumers that engage with our app on a daily basis,” said GetUpside co-founder and CEO Alex Kinnier. “But in order to truly achieve that mission, we need to bring proven personalization to every part of the physical shopping world. The addition of Meredith, Arman, and the A-Frame team will enable us to quickly expand our product to convenience stores, restaurants, grocery, and beyond.”

Sadlowski, a senior business development executive with extensive experience in the downstream oil and gas industry, will manage all activity and growth related to GetUpside’s fuel and convenience store business, which already drives $1 billion in commerce through the platform. Prior to GetUpside, she worked with the Carlyle Group of companies as a chief commercial officer in the infrastructure energy fund and spent more than a decade in various roles at Gulf Oil.

"The downstream oil and gas industry is more competitive than ever due to M&A-led market consolidation and reductions in fuel demand. Brands must provide innovative program offerings to attract and retain distributors and dealers in their portfolio. Likewise, distributors and dealers must find ways to drive remaining volume into their stations,” said Sadlowski. “I’ve spent years analyzing various marketing programs; GetUpside is the only product that uses the power of personalization to drive proven incremental sales and volume for brands, distributors, and dealers alike. I am proud to join the GetUpside team as we continue to provide brand partners and merchants with a competitive advantage in the market today."

Before the acquisition, Ghosh and partner Brian Fichio co-founded and managed A-Frame Ventures, a company that built, advised, and invested in technology companies. Prior to A-Frame, Ghosh served as an executive at multiple venture backed companies. Of particular note is his tenure as Senior Vice President of Sales at Belly, where he scaled the team from five to 150, grew the network to over 7,500 paying merchants and five million users.

“We have deep experience in brick-and-mortar commerce and local sales, and we understand the challenges and opportunities that restaurants face on a daily basis,” said Ghosh. “GetUpside is the silver bullet brick-and-mortar merchants have been looking for; it gives us a rare opportunity to materially change local commerce for the better. I’m excited to bring the GetUpside platform to local and enterprise restaurants across the country.”

While the current environment changes day-to-day, GetUpside is fortunate to be growing and continuing the search for new talent. Sadlowski, Ghosh, and the rest of the GetUpside team are actively hiring in Chicago, IL, Washington, D.C., and Austin, TX. The GetUpside careers page has more information about GetUpside’s work environment and all open positions.

About GetUpside
GetUpside is a digital platform that personalizes brick-and-mortar commerce to help communities thrive. As we connect millions of users with businesses nationwide, shoppers have more purchasing power, businesses earn more profit, and value is driven back to our communities. Now live at tens of thousands of locations in 45 states, we’ve provided more than $25 million in increased profit and cash back to merchants and consumers. http://www.getupside.com

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As originally published here.