Headquartered in London, with bases in Silicon Valley and Singapore, ERN has also acquired two analytics companies - Elucidata and Inspired Analytics - for undisclosed fees and stock. The new round of investment has been raised from existing investors.

The funding will go towards further developing ERN's big data analytics and loyalty platform, Looop, which offers card issuers and merchants a way to maximise the value of every card transaction a customer makes. ERN is preparing to launch with its first commercial client in the coming weeks.

"The further funding and acquisitions of Elucidata and Inspired Analytics have put us in a very strong position prior to the launch of our first commercial client. In Looop, not only do we have a big data analytics platform that is capable of processing thousands of transactions per second, but a system that can present actionable insights about individual customers in real time," said Dan Brassington, CEO and Co-Founder of ERN.

"Banks and merchants struggle to harness the potential of transactional big data because they simply don't have the infrastructure to store it or to use it to build accurate profiles of their customers. The acquisitions of Elucidata and Inspired Analytics have strengthened Looop so it can offer even greater analytical insights to our global clients, enabling them to push highly targeted offers to individual customers at exactly the right moment, boosting long-term loyalty."

James Baldwin, Managing Director, Elucidata, will become Managing Director of ERN's Analytical Consulting Division. Mr Baldwin brings over 10 years' experience of consulting and leadership roles in blue-chip organisations. At Elucidata, he managed delivery of analytical and reporting services to retail, marketing and banking clients including Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays. He is also the former Head of B2B Targeting at Barclaycard and developed the analytics platform for the bank's cardholder offers programme, Barclaycard Freedom.

Jim Jeffrey, Director of Analytics, Inspired Analytics, will become ERN's Analytics Director. Mr Jeffrey is the former Head of Data Innovation at Barclaycard Freedom, where he created market basket analysis algorithms delivering an estimated commercial value in excess of £1m per year to key retailers, and a Business Partner within Lloyds Banking Group's Customer Insight area.