Our story
From kitchen table to three cities.
We started Wild Card because student discount cards in the UK had stopped being useful. Plastic ones in a wallet, generic offers nobody wanted, expiry dates buried in the small print. We wanted something local, mobile-first and run by people who actually used it on a Friday night.
2022
Pen, paper, three venues.
Two finalists in a kitchen in Durham. We list three venues, design a card on Canva, and hawk it on the smoking terrace at Klute. It works.
2023
First thousand cards.
Word spreads through freshers' weeks. Partner venues notice the uplift in midweek covers and word-of-mouth referrals double our list.
2024
Newcastle and Loughborough.
We hire student reps in two new cities, port the operation, and add a proper iOS app so reps don't have to keep paper lists at the door.
2025
Native app, open banking, rewards.
Wild Card 2.0: real-time rewards, an open-banking link so rewards hit your account automatically, and venue-specific gamification.
Want to know who's behind it?
Meet the team that runs Wild Card day to day.