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Ebates
Ebates, co-founded by Paul Wasserman, built the US's largest cash-back platform, routing over $2.2B in annual spending before its $1B sale to Rakuten.
Ebates
Ebates was founded in 1998 by Paul Wasserman and Alessandro Isolani, two former prosecuting attorneys who saw that online retailers would pay a bounty for every customer sent through an affiliate link. The company built a membership base of roughly 2.5 million users by sharing that bounty with consumers as cash-back rebates, paid quarterly via check or PayPal. Ebates functioned as a performance-marketing intermediary rather than a traditional e-commerce retailer. Its model covered every measurable consumer category — department stores, travel, electronics, apparel — and its merchant roster included Amazon, Walmart, Macy's, and Expedia. The firm's competitive advantage rested on a dual-payout structure: it kept a spread on each transaction while returning a disclosed percentage to the member. Ebates expanded through a combination of direct consumer acquisition and white-label rewards integrations with financial institutions. By the time of its sale to Rakuten, Ebates was processing over $2.2 billion in annual member purchases, according to the acquiring firm's disclosures. The company operated from a single headquarters in San Francisco and maintained no disclosed external investment vehicles, philanthropic foundations, or adjacent operating businesses. Leadership remained with the founding team through the transaction. Structurally, Ebates occupied a distinct position between an affiliate network and a consumer-loyalty platform — a membership organization that aggregated consumer purchasing power and monetized it before shoppers reached checkout. That architecture allowed it to retain the customer relationship rather than handing it off to the merchant, which distinguished its leverage from that of a pure affiliate network.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
1998
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
San Francisco
Corporate office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Principals
Paul Wasserman
Co-Founder
Alessandro Isolani
Co-Founder & former CEO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Ebates and when?
Ebates was founded in 1998 by Paul Wasserman and Alessandro Isolani, both former prosecutors. They launched the company to capture the affiliate commissions that online retailers offered for referrals, passing a share of those commissions back to consumers as cash-back rebates. Isolani served as CEO until the company was acquired by Rakuten in 2014 (public record).
How did Ebates make money?
Ebates operated as a performance-marketing intermediary. Online retailers paid Ebates a commission for each sale generated through its affiliate links. Ebates kept a portion of that commission and returned the rest to members as cash back, paid quarterly. The company's revenue was the spread between the merchant's affiliate payout and the rebate paid to the consumer (per the firm's operational model, publicly described).
What happened to Ebates?
Ebates was acquired by Japan-based Rakuten Inc. in 2014 for $1 billion in cash. The acquisition was announced in September 2014 and closed shortly thereafter. Post-acquisition, the platform was eventually rebranded as Rakuten Rewards, though the Ebates brand persisted for several years in the US market (per Rakuten's SEC filings and public disclosures, 2014).
Is Ebates still an independent entity?
No. Since the 2014 acquisition, Ebates has operated as a subsidiary of Rakuten Group. The entity is no longer an independent company or family office; it functions as the consumer-rewards division of a publicly traded Japanese internet conglomerate. It does not manage outside capital or make independent venture investments.
Does Ebates manage third-party capital or operate as a family office?
No. Ebates was an operating company, not a fund manager or family office. Its business model was consumer-facing membership rewards, running on a spread between merchant affiliate commissions and member rebates. The founders exited through the sale to Rakuten, and no ongoing investment-management entity under the Ebates name is known to exist.
What was Ebates' scale at the time of its sale?
At the time of its acquisition by Rakuten, Ebates had approximately 2.5 million members and was driving more than $2.2 billion in annual member purchases across its platform. Its merchant base exceeded 2,500 online retailers, including major US brands like Amazon, Walmart, Macy's, and Expedia (per Rakuten acquisition disclosures, 2014).
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