Recession fears aren’t hurting the want record and purchasing app GoWish, which is seeing document numbers forward of the 2025 vacation season. The app, which has north of 13.6 million registered customers, had its finest day but this week, when on Monday it hit No. 2 on the U.S. App Retailer.
Whereas GoWish has seen related adoption traits in earlier years, this yr has confirmed to be a breakout success. The app doubled the variety of customers from final yr, and it has been breaking information with tons of of 1000’s of latest day by day customers within the month of November.
Within the U.S. alone, the app has practically 6.2 million customers, whereas it has round 1 million within the U.Okay. In its dwelling market of Denmark, the want record app has over 50% market penetration and over 3.5 million registered Danish customers.
Although at present it operates as a tech firm, GoWish has a novel origin story.
The app was initially launched in 2015 by the Danish-Swedish nationwide postal service PostNord as “Ønskeskyen.” (That’s Danish for “want cloud.”) It was only a seasonal want record gimmick, however its founders noticed the potential for it to be one thing extra.
In 2020, GoWish was acquired by Danish VC Dotcom Capital, which is owned by founder Casper Ravn‑Sørensen, who can also be GoWish’s chief development officer, and his accomplice, CEO Mads Dahlerup. They spun it out as an unbiased tech firm and created a global model of Ønskeskyen (the app’s title in Denmark and Norway).
“We may be the primary state-founded tech platform to go world as a privately-owned scale-up,” Ravn‑Sørensen instructed TechCrunch.
Customers can use the app to create a number of want lists for themselves, their household, and buddies, and for various events. Needs — or merchandise you should purchase from on-line retailers — will be added on to your record by copying and pasting a URL, looking for a product, or shopping the inspiration feeds that characteristic thousands and thousands of merchandise. While you’re prepared to purchase, you may faucet a button within the app to go on to the retailer’s web site.
The corporate has round 65,000 affiliate partnerships and over 700 model partnerships, a lot of which are actually including “GoWish” buttons to their very own web sites. This mannequin has been profitable, defined Ravn‑Sørensen, because the app noticed internet earnings after tax of $1.7 million in its fiscal yr 2024, that are being reinvested in its development. (GoWish declined to reveal its whole income.)
The corporate attributes its elevated adoption this yr to the advertising it’s been doing throughout Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snap. Snap even gave GoWish a shoutout on its This fall earnings name, because it’s been one in every of Snap’s accomplice success tales.
“We’re excellent at optimising our advertising spends throughout digital platforms and that makes our world roll-out very efficient,” Ravn‑Sørensen stated.
The corporate will later increase its expertise with AI, however isn’t but sharing particulars about these plans.
“Now we have a mission of ‘fixing gifting’,” famous Ravn‑Sørensen, including that GoWish needs to make “customers’ goals and desires come true whereas making double-gifting and returns a factor of the previous.” (The app lets household and buddies reserve objects on customers’ want lists so customers received’t obtain the identical present from a number of individuals.)
“But, on an extended trajectory, we need to turn into the ‘world genie’ of social purchasing, that may predict future client traits throughout generations,” he stated.
The Copenhagen-based firm is at present a staff of 90 and is backed by Capital D, a London-based personal fairness agency that purchased one-third of the corporate in early 2025; the remaining is owned by the Danish VC Dotcom Capital.
GoWish is obtainable on iOS and Android and gives a Chrome extension so as to add objects to want lists out of your pc.
