Bilt Buys Sports Loyalty Platform Lava for $300 Million

Neighborhood commerce and rewards company Bilt is buying sports and entertainment loyalty platform Lava for $300 million, according to a news release issued Monday, November 2, as reported by PYMNTS.

The deal brings Lava’s technology and partnerships with 56 professional sports franchises into Bilt’s neighborhood commerce system, according to the release. Lava has relationships with teams across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, including the Detroit Lions, the Denver Nuggets, the Carolina Hurricanes and LAFC.

“The deal marks a step in Bilt’s expansion beyond housing, bringing together two networks: Bilt’s ecosystem of residential communities and neighborhood businesses, and Lava’s technology connecting sports teams, venues and their fans,” the release said. “At the center of the strategy is a simple idea. Some of the strongest communities in America aren’t defined just by where people live, but by the teams they love.”

From rent rewards to sports fans

Bilt launched in June 2021 to let members earn rewards on rent payments for apartments, according to PYMNTS. The program has since expanded to cover condo homeowners association fees, student housing payments and mortgage payments. The company was valued at $10.75 billion in July 2025 when it raised $250 million, PYMNTS reported.

In August, Bilt expanded its hospitality operating system to include a platform for travel advisers, a move meant to address fragmentation in the luxury travel advisory sector, according to PYMNTS.

Bilt CEO Ankur Jain said the company sees a way to connect sports loyalty and sports fandom into its neighborhood platform, Bloomberg reported Monday. That would work in both directions, he said, by connecting housing residents into sports experiences and by connecting sports fans into the neighborhood.

What Lava adds to Bilt

Bilt said it wants to use Lava’s real-time loyalty, identity, stored-value and customer engagement technology to add to its ability to connect the home and the neighborhood, according to the release. Bilt aims to combine its AI agents with Lava’s real-time engagement technology to help coordinate benefits and offers across businesses, using both companies’ data and integrations.

“We’ve spent years building technology that helps leading sports and entertainment organizations recognize and engage their fans in real time because that loyalty shouldn’t begin and end on game day,” Lava co-founder Wen Miao said in the release. “What makes Bilt so exciting is the opportunity to take that technology beyond individual venues and connect it to an entirely new network of neighborhood businesses and communities.”

Reporting based on coverage by PYMNTS and Bloomberg.