GoWish’s wish list and shopping app is experiencing its most successful year to date

The app, boasting over 13.6 million registered users, reached a major milestone this week by climbing to the No. 2 spot on the U.S. App Store on Monday—marking its strongest performance to date.

Although GoWish has experienced similar growth patterns in past years, 2025 represents a true breakthrough moment. The platform has doubled its user base compared to last year and continues to shatter records, adding hundreds of thousands of new users daily throughout November.

The app’s reach is impressive across multiple markets: nearly 6.2 million users in the U.S., approximately 1 million in the U.K., and remarkably, over 3.5 million registered users in its home market of Denmark—representing more than 50% market penetration there.

Despite operating as a tech company today, GoWish’s beginnings are anything but conventional.

The platform first emerged in 2015 as “Ønskeskyen” (Danish for “wish cloud”), created by the Danish-Swedish national postal service PostNord as a seasonal wish list feature. However, its founders recognized its potential to evolve beyond a simple holiday gimmick.

In 2020, Danish VC firm Dotcom Capital—owned by founder Casper Ravn‑Sørensen, who serves as GoWish’s chief growth officer, alongside his partner, CEO Mads Dahlerup—acquired the app. They transformed it into an independent tech company and developed an international version of Ønskeskyen (which remains the app’s name in Denmark and Norway).

“We might be the first state-founded tech platform to go global as a privately-owned scale-up,” Ravn‑Sørensen told TechRipple.

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The platform first emerged in 2015 as “Ønskeskyen” (Danish for “wish cloud”), created by the Danish-Swedish national postal service PostNord as a seasonal wish list feature. However, its founders recognized its potential to evolve beyond a simple holiday gimmick.

In 2020, Danish VC firm Dotcom Capital—owned by founder Casper Ravn‑Sørensen, who serves as GoWish’s chief growth officer, alongside his partner, CEO Mads Dahlerup—acquired the app. They transformed it into an independent tech company and developed an international version of Ønskeskyen (which remains the app’s name in Denmark and Norway).

“We might be the first state-founded tech platform to go global as a privately-owned scale-up,” Ravn‑Sørensen told TechRipple.

The app enables users to build multiple wish lists for themselves, family members, and friends across various occasions. Users can add items—products available from online retailers—by pasting URLs, using the search function, or exploring inspiration feeds showcasing millions of products. When ready to purchase, a simple tap redirects users to the retailer’s website.

GoWish has established approximately 65,000 affiliate partnerships and maintains relationships with over 700 brands, many of which now integrate “GoWish” buttons directly on their websites. This business model has proven profitable, Ravn‑Sørensen explained, with the app generating $1.7 million in net profits after tax during fiscal year 2024—funds that are being channeled back into expansion efforts. (The company chose not to disclose total revenue figures.)

The surge in adoption this year stems from strategic marketing campaigns across Meta, TikTok, Google, and Snap. Snap even highlighted GoWish during its Q4 earnings call as one of its partner success stories.

“We’re very good at optimizing our marketing spends across digital platforms and that makes our global roll-out very effective,” Ravn‑Sørensen explained.

The company plans to enhance its platform with AI capabilities in the future, though specific details remain under wraps for now.

“We have a mission of ‘fixing gifting’,” Ravn‑Sørensen emphasized, explaining that GoWish aims to help “users’ dreams and wishes come true while making double-gifting and returns a thing of the past.” (The app includes a reservation feature allowing family and friends to mark items as claimed, preventing duplicate gifts.)

“Yet, on a longer trajectory, we want to become the ‘global genie’ of social shopping, that can predict future consumer trends across generations,” he added.

Based in Copenhagen, the company currently employs a team of 90 and is backed by Capital D, a London-based private equity firm that acquired a one-third stake in early 2025. The remaining ownership belongs to Danish VC Dotcom Capital.

GoWish is accessible on iOS and Android platforms and offers a Chrome extension for adding items to wish lists directly from desktop browsers.