Venmo is partnering with Chipotle on a $250,000 giveaway - and it's another example of Venmo's aggressive push toward monetization

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PayPal-owned peer-to-peer (P2P) app Venmo and quick-service restaurant (QSR) Chipotle are partnering on a promotion this week during the nationwide rollout of the Chipotle Rewards points-based loyalty program.

The promotion, which runs through March 15, is awarding up to $250,000 (between $1 and $500 per customer) through Venmo. Customers can submit the phone number associated with their Venmo account on the Chipotle Rewards website and winners are alerted via Venmo if they win, along with a note and a custom Chipotle pepper emoji.

Chipotle Rewards offers 10 points for every $1 spent in Chipotle, online, or in the app, with 1,250 points resulting in a free entrée, as well as the ability to earn bonus points and rewards.

This promotion aligns with Venmo's aggressive push toward monetization.

• Chipotle can be a popular addition to the Pay with Venmo network. Extending its partnership with Chipotle beyond this promotion can accelerate Venmo's commerce enablement and monetization push, which has been paying off: 29% of Venmo users engaged in a commerce-related function in Q4 2018, up from 17% in July 2018. Chipotle is one of the most mentioned brands on Venmo captions in Venmo transfers, which could make the QSR a good partner for Venmo to extend its partnership with, similar to how it integrated as a payment option within Uber after 6 million people were talking about Venmo and Uber in the Venmo feed. Further, integrating as a payment option for QSRs can be a good strategy for Venmo to expand its monetization opportunities, especially as mobile order-ahead grows: Business Insider Intelligence expects mobile order-ahead sales to reach $63 billion in 2023, roughly 18% of the total $343 billion that US consumers will spend at QSRs.
• Launching promotions and growing its merchant network can accelerate Venmo's push beyond P2P.Venmo has been enabling commerce through direct integrations with millions of e- and m-commerce merchants like Bigcommerce, Shopify, Uber, Grubhub, and Hulu and through its Venmo card. That's allowed Venmo to "close some of the gaps" in how users were paying by more seamlessly allowing them to originate payments within Venmo or access the funds in their accounts more quickly to spend through other channels, PayPal COO Bill Ready previously explainedto Business Insider Intelligence. Meanwhile, those partnerships are allowing Venmo to realize dollars that were being spent indirectly on the platform and ultimately make its platform lucrative. Building out its network of partners can allow Venmo to accelerate its projected $200 million in revenue next year.

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