Lightspeed (company)

Lightspeed
Private
Industry
  • Software
  • Point of Sale
  • eCommerce Software
Founded 2005
Founder Dax Dasilva
Headquarters Montreal, Canada
Area served
 Worldwide
Products
  • iPad Point of Sale
  • Retail Point of Sale
  • Restaurant Point of Sale
  • eCommerce Software
Website www.lightspeedhq.com

Lightspeed is a point-of-sale software provider based in Montreal, Canada.[1][2][3][4][5] Dax Dasilva founded the company in 2005 and is the CEO.[2][3][6]

History

Dax Dasilva founded Lightspeed in 2005 to help businesses re-create an online shopping experience that offered convenience, personalization and product information.[2][4][6] DaSilva is a programmer and previously interned with an Apple developer.[4] From 2006 to 2011, the company had a 1900 percent growth and was named one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.[4] In 2011, Profit ranked Lightspeed number 61 on its list of "Canada's 200 fastest growing companies."[7] Accel Partners led a $30 million investment round in 2012.[3][7][8][9][10] In July 2013, the company launched Lightspeed Retail, an HTML5 web-based product that can be used from any computer.[11][12][13] The product was created by MerchantOS, a Lightspeed acquired point-of-sale software developer.[11][13][14] Lightspeed's customers processed $7.5 billion in 2013.[3]

In September 2014, Lightspeed closed a $35 million investment round led by iNovia Capital[1][3][9] That month, Lightspeed partnered with Vantiv, a payment processing and technology solutions provider, to develop a payment platform that lets users make transactions within Lightspeed's software.[3] The following month, Lightspeed acquired POSIOS, a Belgium-based mobile hospitality point-of-sale company, to expand into the restaurant industry.[2]

By April 2015, Lightspeed installed 1,000 new stores every month. That month, the company’s software was used by 23,000 businesses in more than 30 countries.[15] In 2015, Lightspeed’s transaction volume increased 120 percent from the previous year.

In September 2015, Lightspeed closed a $61 million Series C round of funding led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Investissement Québec, with participation from earlier investors Accel Partners and iNovia.[16]

Operations

Lightspeed has 480 employees in Montreal, Ottawa, Ghent, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, and New York [2][3][14][17][18] The company has customers in thirty countries, but primarily in the United States, Canada, Australia and England.[4] In October 2014, Lightspeed served 21,000 businesses and processed $8.2 billion in annual run-rate transactions.[19]

In September 2014, Lightspeed announced that it would be moving its Montreal offices from the Mile End district to the refurbished historic Place Viger complex.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 Jon Russell (October 22, 2014). "Retail Software Startup Lightspeed Now Caters For Restaurants After Buying Belgian Startup POSIOS". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Terry Dawes (October 22, 2014). "LightSpeed Retail Expands Into Restaurant Industry With Acquisition of Belgium’s POSIOS". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gerrit De Vynck (September 17, 2014). "Lightspeed Plans Payments System With $35 Million Funding". Bloomberg. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Bruce Rogers (February 12, 2014). "Dax Dasilva's Lightspeed Creates 'Apple Store' Experience for Retailers". Forbes. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  5. ↑ Johanne Royer (October 30, 2012). "LightSpeed Retail drives store traffic back up". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  6. 1 2 Max Nisen (November 7, 2013). "Lightspeed Is Helping Stores Kill Off 'Showrooming' For Good". Business Insider. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  7. 1 2 Christine Dobby (June 12, 2012). "Lightspeed secures US$30-million from Accel". Financial Post. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  8. ↑ Eric Blattberg (January 13, 2014). "Stores using LightSpeed processed $6B in transactions last year". Venture Beat. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  9. 1 2 Steven Loeb (September 17, 2014). "LightSpeed raises $35M, debuts new payments platform". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  10. ↑ Sarah Lacy (June 11, 2012). "Accel Invests $30M in Lightspeed, and the Top VC Was the One Doing the Wooing". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  11. 1 2 Anthony Ha (July 24, 2013). "You Don’t Have To Love Apple To Use Lightspeed’s Retail Software, Thanks To Lightspeed Cloud". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  12. ↑ Joseph Czikk (June 18, 2014). "Montreal's Lightspeed Retail Adds Big Data Analytics To Its Cloud-Based POS System". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  13. 1 2 Teresa Novellino (July 24, 2013). "Let there be Lightspeed Cloud for retailers without Apple devices". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  14. 1 2 Terry Dawes (June 11, 2014). "Room At The Top: How Lightspeed Retail Became a Dominant Player in Mobile POS". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  15. ↑ "Montreal’s Lightspeed to cash in on changes to outdated U.S. card security". The Globe and Mail. April 27, 2015. Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  16. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid. "Lightspeed POS Raises $61M To Boost Its Retail And Restaurant Sales System". www.TechCrunch.com. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
  17. 1 2 Jason Magder (September 16, 2014). "Lightspeed software company growing in a hurry". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Montreal’s Lightspeed targets U.S. as credit card security rules shift". Financial Post. May 25, 2015. Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  19. ↑ Steven Jacobs (October 22, 2014). "Wooing Restuarants,(sic) Retail Software Startup Lightspeed Buys POSIOS". Retrieved December 7, 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.