Upserve, founded in 2009 by CEO Angus Davis, is a Providence, R.I.-based provider of a restaurant management platform. It offers integrated cloud-based point-of-sale (Breadcrumb POS), payments (Upserve Payments), analytics (Upserve HQ), a mobile management app (Upserve Live), and the Upserve Marketplace for third-party integrations. Thousands of restaurants use Upserve to manage relationships with more than 32 million active diners, process over $11 billion in annual sales, and serve over 23 million meals per month. The company also maintains offices in San Francisco and New York City. Its platform helps restaurateurs manage menus, staff, and guests. The announced strategic investment is expected to support accelerated growth, expansion of the employee base, and further investment in the platform. Swipely provides payment-processing services and related merchant analytics. The company recently doubled its payment-processing run rate from $1 billion to $2 billion annually, and its revenue tracks with its processing volume. CEO Angus Davis said the firm is growing faster than 50% year-over-year and that its lifetime value to customer-acquisition-cost ratio is well in excess of three. Swipely currently offers client lending in some capacity using third-party support and could expand that effort. The company intended to raise $15–$20 million to fund marketing and product expansion. Swipely faces larger competitors such as Square, which processes roughly $30 billion, underscoring market opportunity and competitive pressure. Swipely provides merchants tools that use credit-card payment data to understand customer behavior, run loyalty programs tied to customers' cards, and send targeted messages and offers. The company shifted from a consumer-facing purchase-sharing product to a focus on payments, marketing, and loyalty. Swipely offers features such as reputation tracking and analytics to measure the in-store impact of online promotions. Founder and CEO Angus Davis said the company sustained itself for three years on its $7.5 million Series A by spending judiciously and because it was already bringing in significant revenue. Swipely says it manages $700 million in sales for its merchant customers and has relationships with nearly 2 million customers. Management plans to expand the team and grow from serving hundreds of merchants to thousands within the year. Swipely builds a social layer on top of everyday credit-card transactions, emphasizing the story behind purchases rather than dollar amounts. The product matches swipes to menus and store catalogs so users can post items, comment, and like transactions selectively (for example, only restaurant purchases). Founder Angus Davis assembled many former TellMe colleagues and emphasized strong security measures to avoid the kinds of slips seen at similar services. Swipely launched in a limited beta and distributed at least 100 invites via a TECHCRUNCH code. The company says its near-term focus is on growth rather than immediately monetizing, though it sees multiple potential business models down the line. Prior to this round, the team had raised roughly $1 million in angel funding.

Total raised

$40M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

May 2014