Vinny Lingham’s Gyft launches APIs for third-party apps

Gyft, the mobile gifting service from Yola founder Vinny Lingham, has announced the launch of APIs to extend gift cards into third-party apps.

While the APIs also allow people to integrate Gyft into websites and other services, the focus is primarily on mobile.

“A lot of developers out there have points, rewards, and unredeemed credits, and they want to offer a way for their users to cash out those points or credits,” Lingham told TechCrunch. Gyft, he says, offers a better alternative for developers than bill pay systems which charge transaction fees

“We’re focused on mobile,” he adds. “There are a lot of mobile games out there. It’s a huge market. And the people who already have mobile phones, playing mobile games, are going to be more open to using mobile gift cards”.

While the new APIs could help drive traffic to Gyft’s own Android and iOS apps, people won’t be required to download the app when accessing the service from a third party. Instead they can visit Gyft on the web, login and print their gift card from the site.

Gyft’s first partner is Yappem, a social network built for sharing customer experiences with brands and businesses. Another 10 integrations will apparently go live before the end of April.

After we got an exclusive peek at Gyft in April last year, it officially launched in September, before going on to be a semi-finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt.

The company has raised financing from the likes of Google Ventures, 500 Startups, Founder Collective (and more).