Upserve Acquired by Lightspeed in $430 Million Deal

Upserve Acquired by Lightspeed in $430 Million Deal

Restaurant payments and analytics innovator Upserve is the latest company to be acquired by point of sale (POS) and ecommerce solutions firm Lightspeed.

The $430 million purchase was announced earlier this week, marking Lightspeed’s 10th acquisition since it was founded in 2005. The deal comes on the heels of Lightspeed’s November purchase of ShopKeep that is anticipated to close for $440 million.

“Lightspeed is quickly emerging as a world-leading commerce platform for SMBs and partnering with them to deliver data-based insights through a single digital hub was a natural choice,” said Upserve CEO Sheryl Hoskins. “Together we look forward to empowering North American restaurateurs to deliver superior guest experiences and make them wildly successful.”

Lightspeed anticipates the acquisition will accelerate product innovation and boost its analytics commerce platform. The company’s purchase of Upserve will also help Lightspeed reach an additional 7,000 U.S.-based clients in the hospitality industry.

Originally founded under the name Swipely in 2009, the company rebranded to Upserve in 2016 to reflect the company’s focus on the restaurant industry.

Upserve has raised a total of $40.5 million from 14 investors, including Greylock and Vista Equity Partners. From October 2019 to October 2020, the company recorded approximately $40 million in revenue.


Photo by Petr Sevcovic on Unsplash

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Upserve Bolsters Online Ordering Features

Upserve Bolsters Online Ordering Features

Food services payments and analytics company Upserve strengthened its mobile ordering capabilities this week. The company, which originally launched as Swipely in 2009, first introduced a basic online ordering service in September of last year.

Overall, the new capabilities aim to help restaurants create a better guest experience while streamlining their operations. Here are the highlights:

  • Offers an embeddable ordering experience that lets restaurants take online orders straight from their website, meaning the guest never has to switch back-and-forth between channels or websites.
  • Allows guests to use their social logins to authenticate themselves before they make their order.
  • Lets restaurants accept orders up to seven days in advance.
  • Segments the online ordering audience to compare them with eat-in guests and send them targeted advertising.
  • Sends notifications to the kitchen when new online orders come in, and allows restaurants to send “your order is ready” texts to the client.

The online ordering system is included with Upserve Pro and is available at an extra cost for Upserve Core customers.

Upserve demoed as Swipely at FinovateSpring 2012 and has raised more than $40 million. Angus Davis is founder and CEO of the Rhode Island-based company. In May of 2017, Upserve announced it was managing $11 billion in annual transaction volume for 32 million active diners and more than 23 million meals per month, figures that grew 100% from the year prior.

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Upserve’s New Square Partnership Offers Clients Access to Funding via Square Capital

Upserve’s New Square Partnership Offers Clients Access to Funding via Square Capital

Screen Shot 2016-08-18 at 12.12.41 PM

When popular point-of-sale (POS) hardware and software company Square launched Square Capital in 2014, it joined the likes of OnDeck, CAN Capital, and Kabbage to provide working capital to small businesses. The company this week announced it has expanded Square Capital to non-Square customers through a partnership with Upserve (formerly Swipely).

Upserve, which processes credit-card payments for food-services businesses and provides performance analytics and management tools, will offer access to its 7,000 customers to Square. Expanding Square Capital through this partnership is key, since Upserve will offer Square access to client sales data to help Square make underwriting decisions. Square Capital’s loans are revenue-based; borrowers repay the loan by giving a fixed percentage of their daily sales.

In an interview with Bloomberg, head of Square Capital Jacqueline Reses said, “We think that the application of what we do is broader than just within Square’s ecosystem. … . So long as we believe that we have a data advantage in underwriting, and it’s relevant to our core business, you can see us extending beyond Square further.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed; however, Recode reported that since Upserve is advertising the loans on Square’s behalf, Upserve is likely benefiting from a cut of the referrals. This is Square Capital’s first expansion outside of its own customer base.

Founded in 2009, Upserve manages more than $800 billion in annual transaction volume and adds 200 to 250 restaurants to its customer base each month. The company demoed as Swipely at FinovateSpring 2012 and has raised more than $40 million.

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Swipely Rebrands as Upserve to Focus Exclusively on Restaurants

Swipely Rebrands as Upserve to Focus Exclusively on Restaurants

UpserveHomepage

Marketing-insights startup Swipely has rebranded to Upserve and launched some major additions to its product line. The Rhode Island-based company was founded in 2009 to “provide marketing tools to main street merchants” and has since narrowed its focus to offer analytics tools exclusively to restaurants. Today’s rebranding reflects that focus.

In a blog post announcing the change, Swipely CEO and Co-founder Angus Davis highlights Upserve’s growth serving the restaurant industry, which employs 1 out of every 10 people in the U.S. workforce:

  • Serves thousands of restaurants across all 50 states
  • Manages 11 million meals per month, up more than 1.7X from last year
  • Manages relationships with 16 million active diners through its CRM program, Guest Book

Along with the rebrand, Upserve added to its product line, which originally consisted of sales analytics, server performance, and menu popularity. The company’s newly launched mobile app helps restaurant owners remotely manage all of their restaurants by comparing sales with labor performance and generating reports across locations.

In an interview with Street Fight, Davis touted how the app will help balance restaurant ownership with work obligations, stating, “It lets them get out of the restaurant for a while and still feel like they’re there.”
DualMobile

Upserve is also launching ShiftPrep, which combines data from table management, point-of-sale systems, and CRM. That data is matched with machine learning, predictive analytics, and external data such as weather to forecast customer dinner traffic.

shift-prep1-forcast

Upserve presented at FinovateSpring 2012 where it demoed Payment Marketing. The company has raised a total of just over $40 million in equity. Last year, it was featured in AlwaysOn’s OnFinance Top 100 list.

Finovate Alumni News

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This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.