Lightspeed buys Upserve as POS market consolidates

News
By published

Acquisition valued at approximately $440 million

Lightspeed
(Image credit: Lightspeed)

POS solution provider Lightspeed has made another acquisition with the point-of-sale market continuing to consolidate. 

Restaurant management platform Upserve is the latest firm to join the Lightspeed family, as part of a deal being valued at around $430 million.

Lightspeed has been busy of late re-shaping the POS market. Earlier this year, it debuted on the New York Stock Exchange and followed that up by purchasing rival e-commerce firm ShopKeep in a deal worth approximately $440 million.

Sale complete

Upserve, which started life back in 2009 under the name Swipely, was one of the earliest apps to ask users to share their purchase information with others. It then shifted its focus to providing business tools to the restaurant market. Across the twelve-month period ending September 30, 2020, Upserve generated revenues of approximately $40 million.

The partnership between Lightspeed and Upserve will grow the former company’s reach by an additional 7,000 customer locations, which collectively generated more than $6 billion in gross transaction volume.

The announcement revealing the details of the acquisition also stated that by working together, both Lightspeed and Upserve will be able to better assist the restaurant industry while it navigates the challenges of COVID-19. More broadly, the buyout represents the latest example of consolidation in the POS sector, a trend that has roots going back much further than the pandemic.

"Combining forces with Upserve is a strategic next-step in Lightspeed's vision of providing the most advanced commerce platform to high-performing businesses around the world," said Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO of Lightspeed. "We believe this acquisition will accelerate the product innovation that has enabled Lightspeed customers to tackle the greatest challenge to their industry in decades and will add exceptional leadership to our teams in anticipation of the economic recovery of the global hospitality industry."

Via TechCrunch

Barclay Ballard
Barclay Ballard

Barclay has been writing about technology for a decade, starting out as a freelancer with ITProPortal covering everything from London’s start-up scene to comparisons of the best cloud storage services.  After that, he spent some time as the managing editor of an online outlet focusing on cloud computing, furthering his interest in virtualization, Big Data, and the Internet of Things.