![]() ![]() Today Lightspeed makes revenues from a monthly plan (typical pricing is $99/month for the retailer solution and $69 for the restaurant solution), which includes basic hardware (the “register” based on an iPad, for example), reporting, support, cloud backup and access for 5 employees. That is where the company’s growth investment will be kicking in. Notably, Lightspeed’s per-customer transaction volume appears to have gone down a bit as it has grown: in 2015 it had 25,000 businesses as customers today that number has doubled to 50,000. Today, that figure is up to $15 billion annually (with the same number of countries in its footprint). When we wrote about the company’s last round of funding two years ago (a $61 million investment), the company had $10 billion of transaction volume going through its platform from 100 countries. To date, Lightspeed has had a strong track record that makes this a sound move. “We had a lot of inbound interest in companies buying us, strategic companies in related industries. That’s been a decision that we had to evaluate with the board and stake holders,” and the end result was to stay on its own and continue to build, hence the investment now. (We are still digging to see if we can find a valuation and will update this as and if we learn more.)Īsked about the size and timing of this round, Dasilva said that it came after several companies approached Lightspeed to acquire it. “That is our ambition for when we are IPO-ready,” he said, and so, too, is reaching breakeven, which Lightspeed also has not done yet while it remains in growth and reinvesting mode, he added. No valuation is being disclosed, but Dasilva said it was “higher than previously” and that the company remains short of the so-called “unicorn” mark of $1 billion. “This investment is part of our commitment to provide long-term support to Québec’s new-economy companies as they grow internationally.” This success is due to the impressive innovations that it implemented and the strategic vision of its experienced management team,” said Christian Dubé, EVP, Québec at la Caisse in a statement. Today, its solutions are used in more than 100 countries and Lightspeed is the world’s largest company in its sector. La Caisse is a repeat investor in the company. “Two years ago, when we first invested in Lightspeed, the company was already considered a Canadian leader in its field. ![]() It brings the total raised to $292 million. It put in $136 million of this investment, with iNovia Capital and Silicon Valley Bank providing the remainder. This latest round of funding is led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, one of Canada’s largest investors, managing investments for some of the country’s largest pension and insurance funds. “We want to monetise that area, and that will be a huge story for Lightspeed going forward.” “We are hoping to be IPO-ready by mid-2019,” he said, noting that one of the big areas Lightspeed will put this latest investment towards is building its own payment processing infrastructure, as today it works with Vantiv and Cayan to provide these services. Lightspeed claims this is the largest venture round ever raised by a Canadian tech startup.ĭax Dasilva, Lightspeed’s CEO and founder, told TechCrunch that he expects this to be the last round of funding before the company goes public, which he expects to happen in about 18-20 months. ![]() Lightspeed POS, which provides point of sale, accounting, inventory management, purchasing analytics, and other related services to brick-and-mortar retailers, restaurants and online businesses competing with the likes of Square and Shopify, has raised $166 million in funding, a Series D that it will use to expand its business deeper into payments and new geographies. E-commerce and digitally-based financial transactions have consistently been one of the biggest and most lucrative areas of the tech world, and today a commerce startup out of Canada is laying down its claim to be among the significant players in the field. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |