Some partnerships are short and intense - a sprint to delivery, a tidy launch, and then a wave goodbye.
And then there are the partnerships where you learn to run the marathon together.
Since 2020, Bravand has been the long-term technology partner for Miconex, a fast-growing FinTech that helps communities thrive through local gift card programmes.
Over the last six years, what began as a website rebuild has grown into a full ecosystem of platforms, websites and mobile apps - supporting consumer and corporate gifting across the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada.
In 2025, Town and City Gift Cards reached a major milestone: £24 million in sales - up 60% year-on-year.
Here’s a look at what that journey has involved, what we built together, and what we’ve learned about scaling digital products in the real world.
The Challenge: Demand Was There - But the Tech Wasn’t
When we first started working with Miconex, the challenge wasn’t a lack of ambition. Quite the opposite.
Miconex had momentum. They had interest. They had a raft of clients and more Local Authorities (LAs) and Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) were ready to move.
They also had a platform that wasn’t built to scale at the pace the business needed.
Demand was there - but the infrastructure and onboarding journey weren’t ready to handle it. The risk wasn’t that growth wouldn’t happen; it was that growth would be held back by friction and limitations in the underlying technology.
So our goal was simple: map and refine their client onboarding journey, then lift and shift the platform infrastructure to unlock scale.
What We Built: Strong Foundations, Built for Growth
Instead of treating this as a one-off build, we worked with Miconex as a long-term partner - supporting the product as it evolved, matured, and expanded into new territories and use cases.
Over the past six years, Bravand has designed, built, and now actively manages:
- Six production Town and City Gift Cards website instances, supporting both consumer and bulk corporate purchasing journeys
- Six staging environments, enabling safe iteration, testing and deployment
- Three native mobile apps, supporting digital gift card redemption journeys (including Apple and Android wallet functionality)
- A suite of supporting microsites for major programmes and disbursement projects
This platform ecosystem now supports corporate and consumer purchasing, distribution, redemption and reporting - at a scale that continues to grow year on year.
Built to Handle the Real World
It’s easy to talk about scalability in theory.
It’s much harder to build something that works when things get busy - when demand spikes, when redemption volumes surge, when a new region launches, or when operational needs change quickly.
As the programme grew, we supported Miconex with continuous platform improvements including:
- infrastructure enhancements and performance optimisation
- reporting, analytics and data improvements
- journey refinements to reduce friction in purchase and redemption flows
- operational tooling and staging environments to support safe change
This is the kind of work that often happens behind the scenes - but it’s what keeps a product moving forward without wobbling.
The Results
Growth You Can Measure
By 2025, the impact of that long-term investment was clear:
- £24 million in local gift card sales
- 60% year-on-year growth
- A platform ecosystem supporting 200+ towns, cities and regions
- Gift card redemption at over 16,000 businesses
- A digital infrastructure built to support both corporate and consumer use cases
The platform has also supported high-pressure, high-volume disbursement capability - including a major programme with Glasgow City Council, which distributed: £9 million to 85,000 low income households.
That project demonstrated not only the importance of scalable infrastructure, but the importance of having a trusted partner ready to respond quickly when delivery matters most.
What We’ve Learned
Growth Needs More Than a Launch
Over the years, one thing has become crystal clear: building a platform is one thing. Scaling it is something else entirely.
Real growth rarely comes from flashy launches or big announcements.
It comes from the gnarly, unglamorous (and ultimately most interesting) work:
- continuous improvement
- infrastructure decisions
- UX iteration
- analytics and insight-led changes
- performance work
- disciplined release cycles
- and a team that picks up the phone when you call
That’s what long-term partnership looks like in practice.
A Partnership Mindset, Not a Project Mindset
We’re proud of the growth Town and City Gift Cards has achieved - but even more proud of the way the partnership with Miconex has evolved.
This isn’t a story of a single project delivered.
It’s a story of a product ecosystem that’s been built, refined, and scaled over time - supported by a shared mindset that technology should be treated as a growth engine, not a constraint.
Team Miconex has always been ambitious, mission-driven, and committed to pushing the platform forward. That shows no sign of slowing down in 2026.
Looking Ahead
We’re excited about what comes next for Miconex and Town and City Gift Cards - and proud to continue supporting the platform as it evolves.
If your organisation is looking to scale a digital product or service, modernise an existing platform, or build something that needs to perform at volume, we’d love to talk.
Get in touch with us:
📥 hello@bravand.com
☎️ 0331 630 1105
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