20 Things You Didn’t Know About Lightspeed
Lightspeed is a leader in the e-commerce industry. It is an international company with offices in London, England, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Lightspeed is a disruptor in the online and brick-and-mortar retail scene that offers innovative solutions for merchants. If you’re not yet familiar with the company, here are 20 things you probably didn’t know about Lightspeed.
1. Lightspeed caters to entrepreneurs
According to Crunchbase, Lightspeed POS is a company that provides meaningful solutions for entrepreneurs in the hotel and restaurant business. It is an e-commerce technology company that helps businesses to offer memorable experiences for their customers by dealing with daily management aspects of their operations. Its POS software and omnichannel retail products give clients the necessary tools to simplify tasks such as inventory management, dales, reporting, and it even helps to consolidate known customer preferences in one easy-to-use platform.
2. Lightspeed is a leader in its industry
Lightspeed has grown from a small company to one of the largest of its kind in the world. It serves over 36,000 businesses currently and it helps these companies to process more than $13 billion in transactions each year. It is used by both e-commerce companies and brick-and-mortar businesses. Lightspeed believes that commerce belongs to everyone. It belongs to the entrepreneurs who realize their dreams of starting a business, the storefronts and restaurants that project new perspectives onto city streets, and the communities that are shaped by those businesses.
3. Lightspeed’s platform attends to large and small details
The technology that Lightspeed offers helps its clients to automate many of the tasks that once required hands-on effort from staff. It provides analytics for restaurants and bars and the platform is scalable to serve businesses of all sizes from small to large. It even provides table management well as point of sale, using intuitive technology with built-in CRM along with advanced reporting capabilities.
4. Lightspeed has been around since 2005
Lightspeed was founded by Dax Dasilva. It officially launched in March of 2005. It has been in operation for sixteen years. During that time Lightspeed has built a solid client base throughout various parts of the world, and it continues to grow daily. Lightspeed helped many companies to stay in business during the recent and still ongoing covid-19 crisis that shut the doors of many hospitality and food and beverage operations. It has provided these companies with money-saving tools and practices that have helped them to comply with recent re-opening restrictions.
5. Lightspeed has a seven-member executive leadership team
Lightspeed is governed by a seven-member team of executive leaders. Dax Dasilva is the founder and chief executive officer. The President is JP Chauvet. Brandon Nussey is the chief financial officer. Rob Williams is a director. Marty Reaume is the chief people officer. Tejbir Wason is a software engineer. Errol Green is a senior software developer.
6. Lightspeed’s board of directors is larger than its executive leadership team
There are 10 members on the board of directors and advisors for Lightspeed. Rob Williams joined the board in August of 2018. Chris Arsenault is a general partner at Inovia Capital. He is involved with 9 current board and advisor roles. Ryan Sweeny is a general partner at Accel. He currently serves on 12 boards in advisory roles. JP Chauvet is the Lightspeed POS President. Patrick Pichette is a general partner at Inovia Capital with 7 portfolio companies to his credit. John Locke is a partner at accel serving on 9 board and advisor roles. Other board members include Marie-Josee Lamothe and Dave Sherry.
7. Lightspeed POS’s platform is complex
Although Lightspeed POS helps companies to provide a seamless user experience for their clients, there is a complicated array of technologies at work behind the scenes. We learned that Lightspeed POS actively uses 135 technologies to power its website, distributed through 35 technology products. Some of the tech products it uses include SSL by Default, iPhone Mobile Compatible, SPF, jQuery, Google Analytics, and HTML5.
8. Lightspeed POS has ensured its uniqueness in the industry
Lightspeed POS maintains a unique edge over other companies of its type because it has secured the legal rights for the sole use of certain technologies. Lightspeed has two registered patents in computing, calculating categories. These patents certify that Lightspeed POS is the sole owner of this intellectual property, therefore no other companies can use them. In addition to the two patents, Lightspeed also has thirteen registered trademarks in the scientific and electric apparatus and instruments categories. This means that none of the competitors can provide services that are precisely the same. It allows Lightspeed POS to secure a unique position as a software and services provider for its restaurant, bar, and hotel clients. The high quality of service that these products provide has given them the ability to build a strong reputation for effectiveness.
9. Lightspeed POS is growing interest around the world
The monthly visitor numbers for Lightspeed POS show that it is gaining interest. The rate of visits is growing by 0.03 percent. the latest analytics show that the average number of visitors to the website is 843,461. This places it as number 54,111 out of the millions of websites that are registered on the world wide web.
10. Lightspeed POS is the most popular in the United States
An analysis of the web traffic by country shows that 48 percent of the traffic to the site is coming from people in the United States. The US shows a growth rate of 1.29 percent. People from The Netherlands made up 21 percent of the traffic. Thirteen percent of the visits are from people who live in Canada. Five percent are from Germany, with a growth rate of 1.71 percent, and four percent from Belgium showing a 2.58 percent growth rate.
11. Lightspeed is a diverse company
Lightspeed is a versatile company that is listed under four major categories on the internet. It is categorized in the business information systems class because it provides useful information systems that allow clients to gather and organize useful data bout their customers and their preferences. It is also under cloud management because its POS platform operates within cloud-based technology. It is an e-commerce company because it helps online as well as brick and mortar companies to more effectively use online ordering systems to create a contactless way to complete transactions for their clients. It is also classified as a retail technology company because it provides its clients with software management solutions that use several different types of technologies.
12. Lightspeed POS started as a venture capital-backed company
Lightspeed POS was fortunate when it first started as a progressive tech company that attracted the attention of large venture capital investors. In secured VC funding for $374 million in a series of five rounds. The most recent VC funding round closed on April 2, 2019, in a post-IPO Debt round. A total of 6 investors helped to support Lightspeed POS with funding for growth and expansion.
13. Lightspeed acquired ReUp in 2018
Lightspeed acquired ReUp on December 14, 2018. ReUp is a Toronto, Ontario, Canada company. It offers a digital platform for business owners who desire to build a loyalty program with their unique branding. ReUp had a total funding amount of $67.5 thousand. The details and cost of the acquisition have not yet been disclosed.
14. Lightspeed acquired Chronogolf
On May 30, 2019, Lightspeed POS acquired a company called Chronogolf. The company is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. it had a total funding amount of $4.3 million. The business was a little different and added a new dimension for Lightspeed. It helps to connect golfers to their favorite courses through technology. It also offers a platform that helps golf courses to connect with their clientele.
15. Lightspeed acquired iKentoo
On July 17, 2019, Lightspeed POS acquired a company called iKentoo. The company represents a new direction for Lightspeed as it is the first acquisition that is not based in Canada. iKentoo is a technology business that is based in Genever, Switzerland with a total funding amount of CHF 6.8 million. The company specializes in providing management and iPad POS solutions for a variety of different businesses including hospitality and restaurants. it is a high-performance solution that significantly improved and added to the products and services that Lightspeed now provides for its users. It also signaled a move into the international expansion of Lightspeed, with new geographical territories now on its radar and marketing reach.
16. Lightspeed acquired Kounta
On October 20, 2019, Lightspeed POS acquired a company called Kounta. Kounta is a company that is based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. This was a significant strategic move for Lightspeed that showed its commitment to further expanding its services into other parts of the world. It expanded not only the geographic reach of the tech e-commerce platform but also the services that it provided. Kounta is a company that contributed yet another type of technology. It is a cloud-based point of sale system that is both flexible and scalable to accommodate a variety of businesses of all sizes.
17. Lightspeed acquired Gastrofix
On January 7, 2020, Lightspeed acquired a company called Gastrofix. Here we see that Lightspeed is continuing with its strategy to move into yet more countries throughout the world. Gastrofix is a company that is based in Berlin, Germany. In addition, it is a developer of cloud-based POS systems to be used with Apple iPad and iPod, expressly within the hospitality industry. Gastrofix had a total funding amount of $23.2 million at the time of the acquisition. The price of the acquisition for Gastrofix was $131 million. This helped to more firmly secure Lightspeed’s entry into the provision of cloud-based services.
18. Lightspeed made two acquisitions within a month
On November 5, 2020, Lightspeed acquired a company called Shopkeep. ShopKeep is a tech firm that offers restaurants and retail stores a point of sale system that is cloud-based for iPad. The New York, New York-based company is a larger business that itself had made four acquisitions. The price that Lightspeed paid for ShopKeep was $440 million. On December 1, 2020, Lightspeed also acquired a company called Upserve. This was less than one month after its previous business purchase. Upserve is a technology firm that is based in Providence, Rhode Island. It provides a smart management assistant for organizing data for restauranteurs in one convenient place. Upserve has made a total of two acquisitions previous to being bought by Lightspeed POS. The price paid for Upkeep was $430 million.
19. Lightspeed has acquired a total of 13 companies.
On March 11, 2021, Lightspeed acquired a company called Vend. Vend is a retailer of POS software that provides technology for iPad, Mac, and PC use for e-commerce, customer loyalty, and inventory management. The company is based in Auckland, New Zealand. Vend made one acquisition before it was bought by Lightspeed. The total cost of the acquisition was $350 million. On June 7, 2021, Lightspeed closed two more acquisitions. It purchased a company called Ecwid for $500 million. Ecwid is a company that is based in Encinitas, California. It provides online selling solutions for small businesses as a software as a service e-commerce platform. Before the acquisition, Ecwid had a total funding amount of $48.5 million. On the same day, Lightspeed acquired a company called NuORDER for $425 million. NuORDER is a company based in Los Angeles, California. It provides a cloud and mobile business-to-business commerce platform that helps users to streamline their business operations and empower their brands. The total funding amount before the acquisition was $81.9 million.
20. Lightspeed is a publicly owned company
Although Lightspeed started as a venture capital-funded startup, it has since gone public. If you’re looking for new stock to add to your current investment portfolio, you might want to check into Lightspeed shares. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and currently offers shares for buying, selling, and trading.
