July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

The competition in the war of the dongles continues to heat up.

Today Swedish mobile point-of-sale (POS) startup iZettle announced a $6.6 million round from Banco Santander to fuel global expansion.

iZettle is one of the European clones of Square, the pioneer dongle startup founded by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey in 2010. While Square has focused on the U.S. market, its success has given way to a host of imitators around the world hoping to capture international markets. iZettle is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the UK, Germany, and Spain, and with this funding hopes to grow outside of Europe.

Mobile POS technology makes it easier for anyone to take credit card payments. This approach to payments combines a small card reader and software applications, enabling people to conduct digital transactions through mobile devices. For many small business owners, This presents a preferable alternative to expensive, bulky, and inefficient traditional point-of-sale systems.

iZettle is far from alone in the European market. Germany-based Payleven is backed by startup heavyweight Rocket Internet and has also raised millions of euros from New Enterprise Associates, Holtzbrinck Ventures, ru-Net, and a mysterious unnamed investor. Payleven is now operational in Germany as well as the Netherlands, Italy, Great Britain, Poland, and Brazil. SumUp is yet another player, backed by $20 million and working on rollouts in Germany, Austria, the UK, and Ireland. And let’s not forget about Jusp, a venture-backed Italian Square clone, or UK-based mPowa, which recently signed a deal with Portugal Telecom. Oh, and PayPal Here which is taking on the European market as well.

iZettle hopes to conquer the market through strategic partnerships. Banco Santander is a large financial group in Spain and Latin America, with a presence in the UK, Portugal, Germany, Poland, and the U.S.. This investment will support iZettle as it expands and will help the startup build relationships with other global banks. Last year, iZettle secured a $31.4 million Series B from Greylock Partners and Northzone, as well as MasterCard and SEB Private Equity, Index Ventures, and Creandum. The company has raised over $50 million to date.

Square raised one of the biggest rounds of last year, with a $200 million investment in September. Investors are clearly bullish about the mobile POS market, and for good reason. Javelin Strategy and Research released a report in April that estimated mobile POS could expand payment card acceptance to up to 19 million businesses, which could account for up to $1.1 trillion in annual new-card payments.

Companies like iZettle, Square, and all the others listed above, are taking on an industry that has been stagnant for a long time by proving mobile, cloud-connected, flexible solutions. When Square first started out, it targeted micro-businesses like individual artisans and food trucks that could not afford traditional POS systems. However there are benefits to adopting mobile POS — like improved efficiency and organization, lower cost, and the ability to track data — that is attracting even huge corporations like Starbucks.

It is a market with massive opportunities, and perhaps one where there doesn’t need to be one dominant player. But where is the fun in that?

iZettle is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Photo Credit:  Charge of the 4th Hussars at the battle of Friedland/ Art Gallery of New South Wales

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Traditional point-of-sale systems (POS) are another kind of POS, and today yet another startup received venture capital funding to improve them.

Erply provides POS system and inventory management software for commercial retail and e-commerce businesses. Today the company announced raising $2.15 million in its second round of funding, according to a report in TechCrunch.

The iPad app and cloud-based platform provide a centralized place to manage multiple areas of a retail business, including POS, inventory, payroll, accounting, and multi channel e-commerce in an integrated system. Businesses can easily add new locations into the system and the retail CRM feature tracks customers and captures their data. There are also sales and marketing campaign tools.

Erply can handle data across physical shops, online stores and warehouses, and provides real-time dashboards of activity. The software is integrated with other platforms including accounting programs like QuickBooks and web-shops like Magento, Amazon, eBay, and Google.

Old school POS systems are difficult to manage, not connected to the Internet and expensive, not to mention cumbersome. Retailers used to deal with printers, cash registers, barcode, scanners, physical receipts, inventory software etc… and none of these systems were connected.

Over the past few years, a crop of startups has given the POS industry a mobile, cloud-based overhaul. The most well-known of these startups is Square which pioneered a small piece of hardware known as a dongle that is accompanied by a suite of software called Square Register. However retailers that have existing POS systems may not want to throw them out the window, and Erply’s technology helps them bring together the convenience and connectedness of cloud-based systems, with all the features and support they need.

The company has 100,000 small to medium business (SMB) customers and 120,000 users, and its client base is growing by around 20 percent each month. Customers include Elizabeth Arden, BMW and The Athlete’s Foot and the company is making a push to support Fortune 500 companies and gain traction in the enterprise space.

Erply has offices in New York, London, Australia, Denmark, and Tallinn, Estonia. Previous investor Redpoint Ventures led this round of financing to fuel growth and international expansion, and take on bigger players like Square and PayPal, other startups like GoPago and Vend. Index Ventures and Dave McClure also participated in this round.

It has raised $2 million in 2010 and this brings its total capital raises to $4.2 million.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Dongles may be leading the point-of-sale revolution, but software plays a role as well. Vend, a company that makes point-of-sale software, has raised $6.5 million to expand operations and develop the product.

Vend’s technology integrates with existing systems like printers, cash drawers, and barcode scanners. It collects data and stores it in the cloud, and it’s accessible on Macs, PCs, and iPads. Business can manage their inventory, monitor and track sales, and look at real-time reporting.

Traditional POS systems are not connected to the Internet, difficult to manage, and expensive. A host of startups have cropped up over the past few years building on developments in mobile technology, cloud computing, and the growth of digital payments to give the POS industry an overhaul.

The most well-known of these startups is Square which pioneered a small piece of hardware known as a dongle that is plugged into an iPhone or iPad to accept credit cards payments. The dongle is accompanied by a suite of software called Square Register that includes checkout customization features, management tools, and data analytics. PayPal and a host of clones such as iZettle and Payleven have similar solutions.

Vend is like Square (or PayPal or iZettle or Payleven) without the dongle.

Vend’s funding news comes on the heels of announcements by Square and PayPal yesterday that could sound the death knell for cash registers. PayPal announced that it would offer free credit, debit, check, and PayPal processing to U.S. businesses that adopt its PayPal Here solution, and Square released a new piece of hardware called the Square Stand that provides a more “elegant” alternative to the cash register.

However, businesses that already have POS hardware may not want to throw them out and start fresh, which is why Vend’s solution is appealing. Vend launched in 2010 and now powers payments in 6,500 stores in 100 countries. Customers include businesses in fashion, sports, tourism, food and drink, and healthy and beauty who pay a monthly subscription fee for the software.

Vend is based in Auckland, New Zealand. Half of the funds came from new investors in New Zealand and Australia, including the Milford Active Growth Fund, and entrepreneurs Craig Winkler, Paul Bassett, and Matt Rockman. Existing Berlin-based investor Point Nine Capital also contributed. This brings Vend’s total capital raised to just under $10 million.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Dongles are a serious business. They are transforming the point-of-sale industry as higher rates of mobile penetration, the growth of e-commerce, and advancements in digital payments lead to a much-needed overhaul.

Today, Javelin Strategy and Research released a report that found mobile point-of-sale (POS) technology poses a significant and growing threat to terminal-based solutions.

Despite the popularity of online shopping, in-store retail still “towers above” the online market with 92.6 percent of total retail dollar volume in the U.S.. However, mobile devices have fundamentally changed the way brick-and-mortar businesses accept payments. Javelin’s report involved interviews with executives at 14 mobile POS providers, as well as data from a random survey of 6,651 consumers, and identified some key trends and themes in the market.

Javelin estimates that mobile POS could expand payment card acceptance by up to 19 million businesses, which could account for up to $1.1 trillion in annual new-card payments. Most of the mobile POS companies offer bundled solutions (hardware + software + services) and charge a fixed percentage fee per transaction, with no hidden costs. Since margins in this area are “razor-thin,” simple sign-up and setup, fast access to money, and strong customer support are necessary for survival. Strategic distribution partnerships, such as Square’s arrangements with Starbucks and Walmart, also help with adoption.

Security is another important concern because without it, neither businesses nor consumers will be willing participants. Javelin found that only 28 percent of consumers consider processing card payments on a mobile device to be secure, and financial institutions require high security standards.

Along with security, convenience is another strong driver of consumer use. A recent report by ComScore found that most consumers are not aware of or actively using digital wallets, but 36 percent of the vendors surveyed still offer one. This is driven by the desire to offer “360 degrees” of services and lock down both the business and the consumer side of the marketplace.

Square was identified as the catalyst in the industry, but there is a significant amount of competition at home and abroad. Clones like iZettle and Payleven have adapted mobile POS to European markets, and PayPal even rolled out a triangle dongle to poke at Square.

As this sector takes off, mobile POS companies are evolving as well by targeting “bigger fish.” Mobile POS systems were first adopted by micro-businesses but have increasingly attracted customers from all parts of the spectrum, ranging from individual craftsmen to massive national chains like Starbucks. By catering to larger businesses, mobile POS startups are able to process a higher volume of transactions. This also requires a greater level of integration, more advanced capabilities, and features like loyalty programs, offers, and online ordering.

Mobile POS solutions provide more cost-effective, convenient and easy-to-implement alternatives to legacy payment systems. They are connected to the Internet, portable, and offer management tools and data analytics. Furthermore, the cloud architecture opens up constant opportunities for iteration.

Shopping is not an either-online-or-offline experience anymore. People commonly browse the Internet before going into a physical shop or search for competitive prices on their phones while standing in the checkout line. Mobile POS is not only changing the POS industry, it is also changing the  retail industry as a whole. The possibilities for integrating the online and offline experiences are endless. Javelin said this technology “will change the way Americans think about the shopping experience.”

Dongles, it seems, will soon take over the world.

Read more about disruption in the point-of-sale industry on VentureBeat. 

Photo Credit: Square

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Lines at sports games are frustrating. Getting up for a beer can mean missing an entire inning, and indulging your craving for garlic fries could result in missing the biggest play of the game.

Bypass has raised $3.5 million to address this issue, because if there is one thing in this world to be afraid of, it’s angry, thirsty sports fans.

Bypass is a payments solution specifically designed for entertainment venues and sports stadiums. These locations must process a large amount of transactions quickly from a variety of vendors. Bypass has services for properties, concessionaires, sports fans, and developers to make the whole system more efficient.

Using tablets and accompanying software, people selling in the ballpark can accept payments using a tablet rather than a old school point-of-sale system. People working at fixed concession and merchandise stands can move the line along faster which increases sales, while hawkers walking around the stadium can more easily sell to people who already spent all their cash on foam fingers.

All of the transaction data is collected in the cloud, which properties and merchants can access to gain insights about their fans buying behavior during an event. On the consumer end, you can download a Bypass mobile app to order food and have it delivered to you seat. No more missed plays.

More modern, cloud-connected point-of-sale systems are increasingly making traditional cash registers obsolete. Square pioneered the way with its solution geared toward small businesses that could not afford expensive POS systems. However, businesses of all shapes and sizes have taken notice of the benefits these software-based payment products afford, like improved efficiency, data analytics, and greater flexibility.

While many Square clones have cropped up around the world, most of them still target small businesses. Bypass is applying this technology to a specific vertical, modifying the basic idea around the unique needs and requirements of the sports industry.

According to a report in TechCrunch, eBay and AEG led a strategic investment in Bypass, and combined with capital from well known sports, media, and entertainment figures like Texas Rangers owner and president (and Hall of Fame pitcher) Nolan Ryan, former San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs, and entertainment and sports exec Casey Wasserman, brings its total to $3.5 million. The money will be used to add more commerce entry points for its clients, which include members of the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, NHL, MLS, universities, music venues, and sites like The Pepsi Center in Denver and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Bypass in based in Austin, Texas.

Photo credit: allygirl520/Flickr 

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

The cash register is a relic of the Civil War era and has reigned as an icon of American commerce ever since.

Walking into a business, selecting what you would like to purchase, and paying for it at a register is an American ritual. However, the average point-of-sale (POS) system is expensive and costly to maintain, inconvenient to set up and manage, and not connected to the Internet. Despite the fact that these types of transactions occur million of times every day, the last significant shift occurred in the 1950s when credit cards and terminals entered the scene.

Now, the point-of-sale industry is undergoing its next wave of transformation as higher rates of mobile penetration and the growth of e-commerce and digital payments set the scene for a mobile-centric, cloud-connected overhaul. At last, Internet companies are fundamentally changing the way brick-and-mortar businesses accept payments.

Dance of the dongles 

Square took the payments sector by storm when Twitter founder Jack Dorsey launched it in 2009. The startup makes a small piece of hardware that plugs into smartphones that reads credit cards. Dongles, as they are affectionately called, quickly rose to the forefront of the international tech scene, with competitors such as iZettle, Payleven, and mPowa cropping up on every continent.

When Square first started out, it primarily targeted its dongle to small business owners who could not afford a point-of-sale system but needed to accept electronic payments to keep their business afloat. Square Register now includes a full suite of software with checkout customization features, management tools, and data analytics. As a result, customers are expanding beyond the initial market of roaming food truck owners, artisans, and taxi drivers. VP of Square Register Jesse Dorogusker said that the set using iPads specifically for physical stores is the fastest growing segment of the business.

“This has been a gathering storm for many quarters,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat. “What is resonating with these merchants is the ability to impact their businesses using analytics and reporting. Our vision for the future of commerce involves a point-of-sale that provides a variety of features to support businesses, and the hands-free experience of the square wallet for consumers. We are changing the way commerce is done to make it easier for everybody.”

In August 2012, Square announced a surprising partnership with Starbucks that meant Square would power the coffee giant’s credit and debit payments nationwide and that it would begin accepting Pay with Square. Starbucks is a massive international business and falls significantly outside of Square’s initial target market. In this case, Square is not serving as a substitute for traditional methods of payment. Rather, the technology works with them to break POS outside of the limitation of cash registers. This move made it clear that Square had ambitions beyond hipster coffee joints and crafts fairs — and the muscle to execute on it. The $200 million venture capital round (at a $3.25 billion valuation) didn’t hurt, either.

For those business that need more than a dongle, but don’t already have a POS system in place, Square released the “business-in-a-box” earlier this year. The package contains a card reader, iPad stand, cash drawer, and printer for stores that want to run their entire payments system using Square’s software (iPad not included). The software is easy to set up and has tools to help merchants keep track of inventory and receipts, and gain actionable, data-driven insights into their day-to-day operations.

Square now has offerings for businesses of all sizes, and perhaps most importantly, those that are growing and want scaleable systems to grow with them.

Cash register vanishing act

Blue Bottle Coffee is a prime example of a company “growing up” with Square. This boutique coffee company recently raised $20 million to expand beyond its home base in California and adopted Square as the method of payment in all existing and future locations. The chain is known for its obsessive attention to detail emphasis on quality. About a month ago, Blue Bottle announced that it would implement Square in all its locations.

“Customers want to go to beautiful, clean places where the people are nice and you can get something that is high-quality and delicious,” said Blue Bottle’s founder and CEO James Freeman. “Square involves no wires or cords, and it speeds people through the line to make the whole experience of transacting as smooth as possible. Giant cash registers are a horrible object to have on your counter, but an iPad is not.”

In addition to aesthetics, collecting and visualizing data is important for businesses of all types and sizes. Reporting and analytics were once beyond the realm of small business owners, who did not have the tech savvy or resources to deal with this kind of information. However, the dogma of data is spreading, and brick-and-mortar businesses also want to benefit from its power.

GoPago is another startup offering an alternative to credit card machines and cash registers. The package includes a preconfigured tablet, data plan, card reader, printer, data plan, and cloud-based software that also offers analytics.

“There was a large need out there to modernize point of sale, because cash registers don’t talk to the Internet,” said Leo Rocco, the CEO of GoPago. “Our automated reporting system allows merchants to slice the information into different categories to provide understanding down to a granular level. These turnkey solutions will be the norm, as physical businesses begin to leverage what companies like Amazon and ebay have done for e-commerce.”

The one true payment service

PayPal is, of course, the grandaddy of digital payments. The company started in the offline world but has dedicated significant resources to establishing a presence in the physical one. PayPal first launched its own point-of-sale product in May. PayPal in stores requires shoppers to enter their phone number and a pin code during checkout, instead of swiping their credit or debit card and pay via their PayPal account. The service is now available in nearly 20,000 retail locations around the country, including 23 national retailers like Jamba Juice and JC Penny.

“We have spent the past year-and-a-half reinventing and reinvigorating PayPal to give the brand a personality,” said PayPal VP of global product Hill Ferguson during a media sit-down. “It didn’t used to mean anything to people unless they were sitting in front of a computer. Now we have a mobile-first philosophy and other programs to reach consumers at every part of the loop. We help offline users get online and inline users get offline to make the shopping experience as secure and convenient as possible.”

PayPal recently announced a partnership with NCR, a point-of-sale company that has been around for 128 years (or since the dawn of the cash register). As if this wasn’t enough, the PayPal also released a triangular dongle of its own called PayPal Here in 2012, which expanded the service into the U.K. earlier this year. PayPal also introduced PayPal Here for iPad.

“We’ve been around for 15 years, and shopping is going to change more in the next few years than it has in the previous 15,” said Anuj Nayar, PayPal’s senior director of communications. “The last major retail innovation was the credit card, and now finally the line between online and in-store payments is starting to break down. From our point of view, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all small businesses, so we provide a range of ways that small businesses can start to take advantage of these new technologies.”

Visions of a digital wallet future

PayPal may be building off the innovation of smaller startups, but its vast reach and broad range of products could make it the global leader. Square has three million individuals and businesses using it and has yet to penetrate mainstream America or international markets. In contrast, PayPal has 123 million accounts, and Nayar said there are 40 million terminals around the world that can be configured to accept PayPal payments. Its recognizable brands and familiarity with finance and banking in different economies are a distinct advantage.

Take the example of digital wallets. Square, Google, Mastercard, and Visa all offer digital wallets, but few people use them. ComScore recently released a digital wallet study that identified low awareness, understanding of benefits, and availability among retailers are among the key barriers to the adoption of digital wallets. PayPal struggles with none of these issues, which is why its 72 percent of the study’s respondents had heard of PayPal’s digital wallet and 48 percent had used it. Far behind in second place was Google Wallet with 8 percent, with Mastercard, Visa, and Square hovering around 2 percent adoption.

It is still early days for digital wallet technology, but chances are it will become more mainstream as consumers become more comfortable with the shifting landscape of payments. For both consumers and businesses, Internet companies are going head-to-head to win their hearts (and wallets). It won’t be long before transactions on all sides happen through smartphones.

To put it bluntly, POS systems are POS, but with mobile, cloud technology, and Internet startups are changing that.

Subway, the sandwich franchise, has not had a lot of luck with its point of sale computers. Shortly after two Romanian hackers were indicted for hacking into the systems, a the District Court of Massachusetts indicted another two hackers for stealing up to $40,000 from the company.

Shahin Abdollahi and Jeffrey Thomas Wilkinson allegedly went to great lengths to remotely log in to Subway point of sale systems, create fake gift cards totaling around $40,000, and use them or sell them on eBay. They supposedly did this by either installing remote access software on the systems or selling Subway point of sale computers that already had LogMeIn, a remote access tool, previously loaded.

That’s right, Abdollahi ran an entire point of sale system business and is also indicted for selling a number of these LogMeIn-ready machines to businesses. According to the indictment he allegedly sold these POS systems under the company name POS Doctor, to Subways in Massachusetts, Wyoming, and California.

From there, they would have hopped inside the system and electronically loaded the gift cards for use or sale.

Furthermore, the Abdollahi ran a number of his own Subway franchises in Southern California, according to the indictment, to learn the point of sale systems. Seems like a lot of effort for $40,000 in gift cards, but it could have been that the two were setting up infrastructure for a bigger scheme, if the allegations are true.

Check out the indictment below:

hat tip Ars Technica; Subway image via pat00139/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

The separation between online and offline is becoming increasingly blurred, like a sandy shoreline washing away into the deep, dark ocean of the internet.

[Note: The writer read Jack Kerouac's "Sea" poem over the weekend. Please excuse any and all maritime analogies today.]

PayPal announced today that 23 large national retailers are participating in its point-of-sale initiative. The service is now available at 18,000 retail locations around the United States.

PayPal extended its payment platform into real world stores in May of 2012. Shoppers enter their phone number and a pin code at the point-of-sale terminal during checkout instead of swiping their credit or debit card. This is useful for people who forget their wallets, are juggling children, or are active PayPal users who prefer to keep their transactions in one channel. My roommate Eric who wins PayPal money by playing games comes to mind. There are also opportunities to earn digital coupons and loyalty points by choosing this method of payment.

Home Depot was the first business to adopt the pilot program, followed by 15 other retailers including Abercrombie & Fitch, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Jamba Juice, Office Depot, and Toys “R” Us. During a roundtable chat in December, PayPal’s VP of Global Product Hill Ferguson said the goal was to onboard 20 retailers by the end of 2012, creating a network of 17,000 stores. PayPal surpassed its goal and will continue to grow the network in 2013.

This is one among many initiatives the payments giant is taking to infiltrate its offering into every commercial corner. It also released a triangular dongle to compete with Square, which enables small businesses to accept mobile payments. as well as the My Cash Card, a “fully branded cash loading token” that people can use to convert cash into online currency. Ferguson said that these are all part of a comprehensive campaign to make PayPal the universal payment method.

“We have spent the past year and a half reinventing and reinvigorating PayPal to give the brand a personality,” he said. “It didn’t used to mean anything to people unless they were sitting in front of a computer. Now we have a mobile-first philosophy and other programs to reach consumers at every part of the loop. We help offline users get online and inline users get offline to make the shopping experience as secure and convenient as possible. Our vision is to be the global digital wallet.”

PayPal began as a web payment service in the 1990s and was acquired by eBay in 2002. Now with the explosion of web and mobile commerce, it has over 117 million active users. That is more than the population of Mexico. The stock is doing well and last year, PayPal acquired multiple payments startups. It continues to be relevant in a quickly changing world by maintaining awareness of consumer and technological trends and evolving accordingly. That said, many are skeptical of PayPal’s in-store relevancy and argue that it offers little value to the consumer.

I don’t spend too much time in big box retailers, and the only scenario I see myself using the service is if my blood sugar crashes during a run and happen to be passing by a Jamba Juice. Considering the frequency with which I go running, this is hardly encouraging.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Clover Network has collected $3 million, according to an SEC filing. This stealthy startup is developing a payment network to enable transactions out in the field. The technology turns tablets and mobile phones into point-of-sale terminals. It integrates with payment processors and third-party applications so businesses can expand their reach, while also maintaining synced and secure data in the cloud. Merchants don’t have to worry about servers and the API is open to developers.

Clover previously raised $5.8 million from Sutter Hill Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Morado Venture Parters. This filing included Sutter Hill Ventures as well as Shutterfly CEO Jeff Housenbold. The company has not yet responded to requests for comments. Read the filing.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It’s not just about daily deals anymore: Soon you may be using Groupon’s new iPad register service Breadcrumb to check out of restaurants.

After acquiring the iPad point-of-sale (POS) company Breadcrumb back in May for an undisclosed sum, Groupon is today following through with that purchase by launching Breadcrumb across the U.S. for restaurants.

By doing so, Groupon is continuing its move towards becoming a mobile payment player to take on the likes of Square, Intuit, and PayPal. It’s also directly competing with other dedicated POS companies like Shopkeep. Groupon also launched Groupon Payments in September, which lets consumers charge credit card purchases via an accessory on their smartphone.

“Coming over to Groupon made a whole lot of sense,” said Seth Harris, Breadcrumb founder and now General Manager at Groupon, in an interview with VentureBeat. He thought that Groupon had all of the resources to realize his dream of Breadcrumb’s potential, and he’s also a believer in Groupon as a mobile payment entrant, saying the company has the “opportunity to be a major player in the world’s local commerce operating system.”

Just like every other newfangled point-of-sale solution, Breadcrumb aims to simplify the lives of restaurant owners. In addition to serving as a modern checkout solution, Breadcrumb can easily rearrange tables, split checks, and take special requests from customers. And since it’s the focal point for sales data, it can also generate reports in real-time.

Pricing starts at just $99 a month, though you’ll still have to provide your own iPad, receipt printer, and cash drawers. Groupon will also provide training on-site for businesses in New York City and San Francisco.

While a major step up from older point-of-sale systems, which generally require clunky and expensive hardware, Harris says Breadcrumb differentiates itself from other POS solutions because it focuses on the needs of hospitality businesses. His experience in the restaurant business — starting out as a bartender and eventually moving up to general manager — was one of the inspirations for Breadcrumb’s floorplan feature for keeping track of tables and orders.

For now, Harris says he’s focused on spreading the word on Breadcrumb in the U.S. Groupon’s new mobile payment plays could be a good thing for the company. Its troubled stock saw a 14 percent uptick when Groupon Payments was announced. After opening at $20 a share in its IPO last fall, Groupon is today trading at just $5.03.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

POS. It’s the universally understood acronym that can stand for “piece of sh*t” or “point of sale” — and that’s no coincidence. LightSpeed, which seeks to change retailers’ perception of point-of-sale systems, has today announced $30 million in its first institutional round of funding.

The Series A investment, raised entirely from Accel Partners, comes seven years after LightSpeed was born and validates the company’s mission to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping, and transform the in-store experience.

Founded in 2005, LightSpeed makes a Mac-, iPhone-, and iPad-friendly point-of-sale and retail management system that is now used by roughly 10,000 retailers, athletic apparel manufacturer Adidas being one of them.

Think of LightSpeed’s system as giving retailers a way to replicate Apple’s stellar in-store experience, where every sales person with a mobile device can show off products and make a sale. The system is multi-user, integrates with a retailer’s e-commerce business, supports a variety of payment options (including gift cards), works for companies with multiple locations, and tracks and manages store inventory.

LightSpeed, a bootstrapped company until today, has grown revenue 2,000 percent over the past five years, the company said in a press release.

“With our new capital resources and partners at Accel, we will further enhance our products and solutions that help virtually any store chain, anywhere in the world, to move ahead of the curve in the digital retail revolution and embrace the needs of today’s shoppers,” founder and CEO Dax Dasilva said in a statement.

Based in Montreal and Ottawa, LightSpeed has 50 employees and will use its funding, in part, to staff-up operations.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

While Square and PayPal have received quite a bit of hype for their mobile credit card payment solutions, they’re still just “point of sale-lite,” according to Intuit’s mobile payments and point of sale (POS) head Trevor Dryer.

Mobile credit card readers are a fine solution for young businesses, but they currently don’t scale very well as businesses grow. Realizing that, Intuit announced today that it has integrated its GoPayment credit card reader with Quickbooks Point of Sale 2013 – allowing nascent businesses to start out with the GoPayment reader and easily transition into the more robust POS suite for more complex tasks.

“GoPayment was really started to tap the low end of the market,” Dryer told VentureBeat in an interview yesterday. Intuit launched GoPayment in 2009, giving it a healthy head start on both Square and PayPal’s Here. The company was surprised to find that businesses quickly wanted more robust features in GoPayment, and its existing POS users were increasingly turning to GoPayment even though they had difficulty synchronizing that mobile data with Quickbooks POS.

“The thing that is missing from other POS solutions is bringing together simple and complex features,” Dryer said. Intuit, of course, is no stranger to building complex financial applications. The company that made Quicken and Quickbooks household names now has more than 200,000 small business customers using Quickbooks POS, a market that it’s been pursuing for over ten years now, and over 8 million small business customers in total. If any company is going to help mobile payments mature, it could very well be Intuit.

The GoPayment integration works as you’d expect: in QuickBooks Point of Sale 2013 you’ll now easily be able to see sales made from the credit card reader. And on the GoPayment end, you’ll be able to see live inventory and pricing data from Quickbooks POS.

While GoPayment was likely enough to handle your your artisanal organic goat cheese business as you camped out in your local farmer’s market, you’ll quickly outgrow it as you build your cheese empire. QuickBooks POS offers plenty of features to help your growing business, including inventory tracking, multi-location management, customer tracking, employee hour and pay management, and more.

Eventually the likes of Square and PayPal will have to offer similar solutions for growing retail businesses — unless they’re content with just handling the low-end of the mobile payments market. (E-commerce is a different story for PayPal, where it’s powering payments for many online businesses.)

Dryer mentioned offhandedly that he’s noticing many small businesses are being influenced by Apple’s new move towards mobile payments with its stores. They’re seeing Apple offer cool features like self-checkout from your phone, and they want a piece of that action. He mentioned a garden store that now uses GoPayment for large items, which lets customers bring those items directly to their cars instead of dragging them to the checkout lane.

Quickbooks Point of Sale 2012 starts at $1,099.95 for the most basic version of the software, and there are also other bundles which includes retail hardware.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Restaurant and hospitality point of sale startup Breadcrumb has joined the Groupon family. The Chicago-based online couponing firm has acquired the New York-based startup, Groupon reported Tuesday in a blog post.

Unsurprisingly, the amount of the deal was not disclosed. According to Groupon’s announcement, the company is excited to help “build affordable and intuitive products that make it easier for local merchants to manage their business,” Mihir Shah, Groupon’s vice president of mobile, wrote in the blog post.

Similar to mobile payment service Square, Breadcrumb runs its point of sale system (POS) with iOS apps. This keeps costs lower because businesses aren’t stuck buying pricy cash register equipment. At a restaurant, Breadcrumb can manage an entire patron’s order from the time they walk in the door to when they pay their check.

Breadcrumb also has a time clock, shift scheduling capabilities, and payroll tools to manage employees. And because no startup these days would be complete without them, Breadcrumbs comes with analytics to track business costs and customer information.

Groupon alludes that it will integrate its services into the Breadcrumb POS system. The daily deals site has also been testing a mobile payment to rival PayPal and Square and might take a few pages from Breadcrumb’s book to round out its service.

The daily deals site assures that Breadcrumb will continue to operate for “new and existing clients.”

Groupon has made more than a dozen acquisitions in the last year, including travel site Uptake; Hyperpublic, which aggregates place and deal data; and Adku, an e-commerce data firm.

Waitress carrying dishes image via Shutterstock

“In-store payments are a natural extension of what we’ve done. As mobile has become important, retailers have gotten interested in how they can use mobile as a connective tissue the consumer,” said PayPal’s vice president of retail Don Kingsborough in an interview with VentureBeat.

PayPal has cut deals with VeriFone Systems and Equinox Payments to integrate the company’s payment system into cash registers already present in many retail stores. Both company’s point of sale equipment is found in many large- and medium-sized chain stores, along with smaller businesses.

Verifone has entered “a comprehensive licensing, marketing and implementation agreement” with PayPal for its cash registers. Initially, PayPal’s digital wallet will integrate with Verifone systems, as an alternative payment option. Likewise, the deal with Equinox enables customers to pay with PayPal’s mobile app.

The payment company has also partnered with smaller point of sale system companies Vend, Erply, Shopkeep, and Leapset. Small businesses use their POS software to run their business and accept in-store payments. PayPal’s partnership with Vend and others focuses on mobile payments and check-ins. Customers can check into a store using Vend, Erply, Shopkeep, or Leapset cash registers, pay with the PayPal mobile app, and receive email receipts.

PayPal announced partnerships with several retailers, including JCPenneys, Office Depot, and Jamba Juice, to process mobile payments and offer mobile offers, such as coupons.

The news could threaten mobile payment company Square, which offers payments processed with a smartphone but only with Square-enabled cash registers. Right now, the majority of businesses using Square are small and localized. Now that PayPal has partnered with POS companies whose terminals are used in major retailers, it could hamper Square’s potential growth into larger-scale retailers.

Image Sarah Mitroff/VentureBeat

Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph has a thing for rental startups. Today he is joining the board of Getable — a company making tablet payments a reality for rentals.

“I do a fair amount of angel investing. It’s natural that I see every “Netflix of” type business,” said Randolph in an interview with VentureBeat. “I’m pretty selective about where I spend my time, and I’m comfortable that [Getable] is a long-term thing.”

There are a number of companies bringing a part of the rental industry up to technology speed. Netflix did it for movie rentals, Zipcar does it for cars, Chegg does it for textbooks, but Getable wants to do it for all of the $85 billion rental industry.

At its launch in 2009, Getable (then known as RentCycle) had created a website where rental stores across the Bay Area could list inventory available for rent and join the e-commerce era. It also set up an online shopping cart for individual rental websites, a software-as-a-service back-end inventory manager, and customer relationship manager. Then, in March, 2011, the company introduced its payments processing tool for physical rental stores. Think of it as like Square, except for the rental niche, with an iPad app that lists the store’s inventory and a dongle to accept payments.

“I think [the payments system is] actually tremendously exciting because so little happens these days behind a cash register,” said Randolph (pictured right). “We think it will change the entire flow within the store.”

Today, the company is beginning to deploy the tablet payment systems into an even more niche market: bike rentals in San Francisco. Getable is starting primarily with Blazing Saddles, a company anyone knows if they’ve walked by Fisherman’s Wharf and seen cycling tourists headed in packs toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Starting small is, for Getable chief executive Tim Hyer, a very strategic business move. He hopes that being in a such a small market will help prove the concept. Randolph says this takes discipline to not jump out into the rest of the industry.

Companies are saying, “‘We are putting our store in your hands,’ and that’s why you need to focus in and really get it right,” Randolph said. “I think they’re actually being very, very smart on being focused and disciplined on saying, ‘Let’s focus on one geography and get it right in one category.’”

Of the stores where Getable has tested its tablet payments system, 50 percent of purchases have been completed through the tablet, and it expects those numbers to increase by the summer.

Randolph, who joined the company as an advisor over a year ago, is playing an instrumental role in keeping Getable on track. Hyer says he and the rest of Getable’s board, which include OpenTable founder Chuck Templeton and Collaborative Fund founder Craig Shapiro, gel very well, especially since Getable positions itself as the OpenTable for the rental industry.

Hyer also forged an early relationship with Jeff Jordan, former chief executive of OpenTable and current partner at Andreessen-Horowitz. The venture firm went on to participate in Getable’s $1.4 million seed round last August, along with Collaborative Fund, PayPal’s Max Levchin and others.

Randolph says the four board members often meet with Jordan, and Hyer says Andreessen-Horowitz is “as good as they sound.” As for Randolph, Hyer says he has been a “fantastic advistor,” and says Randolph’s time at Netflix is invaluable to Getable’s business.

Of course, Hyer told us that Randolph is concerned he’s going to become “Rental Guy,” as he is the founder of Netflix, invested in Getaround, and is on the board of BookRenter.

The Avengers are looking for a Rental Guy, right?

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Next time you check in to a coffee shop on Foursquare, the store manager might check your Twitter profile, look at your Facebook profile, and send a coupon your way via email.

The only reason this isn’t happening now is that it’s difficult to integrate data about these social networks, and for most restaurant and cafe operators, it’s a time-consuming distraction.

Own, a next-generation point-of-sale service provider, is adding social media integration to its service, which might make the process simpler for store managers.

Own offers its clients a customized Android tablet that acts as a point-of-sale device (replacing the old cash register) and integrates with a back-end, cloud-based service Own provides. That service gives store operators real-time information about sales at each Own “terminal,” aggregating everything into a dashboard that lets them keep an eye on the business from afar. Now, that dashboard will include integration with Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare, enabling them to keep an eye on social media chatter alongside their sales data, as shown in the screenshot above.

The social media integration “shows the people behind the numbers,” said Own CEO Verdi Erul Ergün in an interview with VentureBeat.

Own is still in its beta-testing phase, with about 65 trial accounts using the service. It has processed over $2 million in transactions since its launch in October.

Own, based in San Francisco, employs about 20 people. It has received funding from Detroit Venture Partners and other investors. The company was founded in 2009, and launched in September, 2011.

Screenshot courtesy Own.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It’s an election year, which means it is time for debates, caucuses, and campaign fundraising. This year, President Obama is going beyond the hefty check and taking donations using tech-darling Square.

“Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, running for president or local assembly, Square makes it easier than ever for candidates, organizations and volunteers to fundraise for their cause,” said a Square spokesperson.

Square allows businesses to accept credit card payments through their mobile phones. It does this through a small, square card reader, which attaches to the phone through its audio jack and connects to its iOS or Android application. Both the app and the card reader are free; Square makes its money through transaction fees. Much of Square’s adoption has been from smaller businesses that may not have the point-of-sale systems needed to accept credit cards.

Aside from taking away the necessity of check-out hardware, Square is also inherently mobile and can accept payments wherever you are. That’s what makes this so enticing for campaigns.

President Obama will travel all throughout America looking for voters and donations during this election season. Known for his townhall metting, the President will undoubtedly be headed to small cities to connect with the America outside of Washington. Having this system will help his staff quickly collect donations. Another benefit of Square’s mobility is that dedicated donation stations won’t be necessary — donation-takers could walk through the crowd and accept money on the spot.

According to a Square spokesperson, the company does not plan to have any other branding other than its card readers at Obama’s campaign events. The company assures us that it is ready to take on the increased cash flow, and says it handled over $2 billion in transactions during its first year.

President Obama will also be holding a Google+ hangout Monday at 5:30pm eastern standard time.

via TechCrunch, President Obama photo via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Retail giant Walmart’s digital technology division, Walmart Labs, has acquired point-of-sale development company Grabble for an undisclosed amount, the startup announced today on its website.

Grabble produces a point-of-sale technology that integrates with mobile phones. With the rise in NFC-enabled devices, which allow consumers to make purchases using only their phone or tablet, it makes sense for Walmart to turn its attention to this new method of payment. It’s also worth noting that a number of big companies, such as Google and PayPal, are developing technology to support transactions using a device rather than a credit card.

“Grabble started with a vision to make shopping smarter in a garage in Wollongong, Australia, and today we are pleased to announce that Walmart has acquired the company and we will be joining the @WalmartLabs team in Silicon Valley,” the company wrote in a statement. “We’re excited about seeing our passion play out on a larger stage and especially look forward to working with the team at Walmart.”

Founded in January 2010, Grabble previously received seed funding from startup incubator Startmate. Grabble was co-founded by engineers Stuart Argue and Anthony Marcar, who will both be joining Walmart Labs in Silicon Valley as part of the acquisition deal.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

A small Detroit-based company has plans to reinvent the way restaurants, cafes and stores take money from customers.

Own is aiming to make a point-of-sale (POS) system that doesn’t just overhaul the cash register, it turns it into a node on a web-connected information system. Its solution combines the slickness of tablet hardware, the optimization of a custom operating system, and the flexibility of a cloud-based infrastructure to make it all happen.

That is, if it works. The company has been testing its system with about 20 beta customers in the Detroit area. It just secured an $850,000 investment round led by Detroit Venture Partners, and plans to move the engineering team to Silicon Valley by mid-October. Own was founded by Verdi Ergün and Erol Ahmed.

“We’re not an app, nor a POS. We’re a cloud-and-social-based platform for retail 2.0, plus POS,” says Rajeev Viswanathan, the company’s energetic 20-year-old chief executive.

The company’s plans are more ambitious than most startups — it’s not just making an app, it’s building a whole system. That system starts with tablets (sourced from Asus) running a custom, Linux-based operating system called Nimbus, which Own has developed. The tablets act as touchscreen point-of-sale devices in retail locations. From there, the tablets transmit data over the Internet to Own’s servers. Business owners can get real-time data about retail sales through a web-based interface called Up. The analytics can also show trends over time, by location, or even correlated with the weather, Viswanathan says. The analytics apply to all of a company’s Own-enabled points of sale, across an entire restaurant chain, for example.

Also, business owners can use Up to set prices, distribute coupons, change their menus, initiate sales, and the like. What’s more, Viswanathan says, the system will be able to integrate with Twitter and Facebook. Right now it lets business owners send updates to their network, but the company plans to integrate it more tightly with social networks so that, for instance, it can deliver targeted discounts to specific customers.

In an age when many startups are focused on making a better iPhone photography app or yet another daily deals site, Own’s ambition is impressive. It also means there are a lot of pieces to coordinate, which will be a challenge for the young startup.

The server software is built on Ruby on Rails, which Viswanathan says will facilitate integrating Up with other commerce systems, such as daily deals sites, social shopping services and more.

“Since it’s web based, we can integrate in a flash with all these components that people have built web apps for,” Viswanathan says.

“It’ll become a platform for web services that want to integrate into the point of sale. It’s the connectivity between daily deals, mobile payments, or social media and the small business owner,” says Jake Cohen, vice president of Detroit Venture Partners.

The company has about 20 employees, Viswanathan says, and has been working for over two years on the project. Much of the development has been driven by feedback and requests from beta testers.

“These store owners are helping us. They’re telling us what they want. We’re not just making this up,” he says.

The company competes with POS vendors like Micros, Radiant and Coffee Shop Manager. But when I ask him if it competes with Square, Viswanathan bristles. “We’re not an app,” he reiterates. Whereas Square focuses on credit-card processing and “making anyone a merchant,” Own will target shop owners: people who are already retailers.

The company is in the process of moving its technology team to Silicon Valley, to better attract engineering talent and to be closer to potential integration partners. However, it plans to open a sales, marketing and customer support center in Detroit.

“These guys are from the Midwest. At the end of the day, these guys think they can differentiate through customer service,” Cohen says. “It’s about understanding the customer, and their customers are nationwide. We feel like we can relate to people across the country. Silicon Valley is a great place for technology, but maybe not as great of a place for sales and customer service,” says Cohen.

Viswanathan credits a series of mentors for helping guide him. Amit Gupta, Ambassador G. Wallace Hope, Babu Lal Jain, and his former employer, Alex Antonov at Siber Systems. And, while he isn’t getting much sleep, it’s clear he’s fired up about the move.

Other Own investors include Vinyard Capital, Compuware Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and Bluewater Angels. The company previously raised $250,000 in a seed round from investors including Tolga Ciftci, Nathan Stoll (founder of Aardvark.com), David Fry (founder of Fry.com), Murat Ahmed, and Bob Stefanski (co-founder of TIBCO).

Top photo: Own CEO Rajeev Viswanathan and cofounders Erol Ahmed and Verdi Ergün. Courtesy Own.

Note: VentureBeat first mentioned Own in an unsubstantiated story yesterday, which we’ve since pulled. We regret the error.

“Of course, we would love for you to try one,” says Kaplan, who doesn’t know this. I politely decline, without going into the gory details of my dairy-free diet.

I can’t tell you about how wonderful Kaplan’s food is, but I can tell you Melt’s innovative way to pre-order and then pay for food from your smart phone is fantastic.

Melt uses location-based mobile technology so guests can remotely order Melts, soups, or other items (they have Cracker Jacks) from mobile phones. Customers can place orders on Melt’s HTML5-based mobile site and receive a QR code that can be scanned at any restaurant location. There’s just one for now, located at 115 New Montgomery Street, but Kaplan is aiming for hundreds of locations in cities around the United States.

The restaurant on Montgomery Street, the first of five in San Francisco, is shiny and white. The soda fountains look like old soda jerks, but they have fancy buttons. The font is bold and basic. Signage is minimal. It’s a sunny day and the doors are open even though the restaurant isn’t open to customers yet. A steady stream of students, business people and shoppers keep trying to come in and order. The first thing they look at is the menu, and then they move to the cash register to order. They are politely turned away (why doesn’t someone put up a sign?) and told to checkout the restaurant’s website. Not one of them is aware they can order with their phones. This will take some getting used to for restaurant goers. Even in a tech-friendly city like San Francisco.

“This is an industry that is ripe for technology innovation,” says Kaplan, referring to the point-of-sale (POS) industry. “Existing players are going to struggle but work hard to get involved here. It will be interesting to see where they go. We want the experience of a legacy player and the innovation of a new player, so we have to write the middleware.”

Melt’s system isn’t just POS. Kaplan has created a single system that does sales, manages payroll, helps employees clock in and out and other functions designed for managers. This will make the system slightly more competitive in the restaurant space against companies like Square and PayPal. I can’t help but wonder if Kaplan hasn’t just created a restaurant chain to test what could become a profitable POS system. I snap out of that idea when I see how enthusiastic he is about restaurants.

Kaplan is wearing the Melt uniform, making him blend in with the crew. Except his uniform is immaculate, ready for interviews with the press (CNN is shooting while we talk). The rest of the crew has been at work, testing the kitchen.

“I was once a busboy at a Chinese restaurant,” says Kaplan, when I ask him about his previous restaurant experience. And that’s the reason why the media is interested in this restaurant: What is the founder of the Flip doing in a restaurant?

“My team has gone on to more exciting things too,” says Kaplan. ” This is hard and cool and different.”

I wonder if this was the answer he gave Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most influential VC firms, when it asked why it should invested in Melt. Whatever the answer was, it worked. The exact amount of Sequoia’s investment hasn’t been specified, but in an interview with AllThingsD, Kaplan said it’s “enough to open 20 stores” and that those stores will cost between $500k to $1M to open. Restaurateur Michael Mina is also participating in this new endeavor.

Sequoia is betting Melt will be another hit like Flip was. But, depending on who you ask, Flip was also a flop.

Just two years after its $590M acquisition of Flip in 2009, Cisco shut down the Flip division as part of a broader restructuring of its consumer business. It wasn’t all Flip’s fault. Cisco has struggled with consumer devices and didn’t do much to improve Flip technology. Cellphones also started shooting high-definition video, erasing any need to carry two camera devices at once.

That experience must have been exhausting for Kaplan, and explains why he has the desire to embrace comfort food and a totally different type of technology. He has the money to do it, but he doesn’t want to talk about money. He want’s to talk about a different kind of cheese.

“The Melt product is nostalgic,” he says as I drink water from a compostable Melt cup. “It makes people happy.”

This idea of making people happy comes up over and over during the interview. He says grilled cheese makes people happy and using their phones to do cool new things makes them happy. He says “making people happy” was also the foundation of the Flip. Besides that foundation, the two companies also share a similar user experience.

“Simplicity is the envelope everything is wrapped in,” says Kaplan, referring to both companies.  He goes on to say both companies required a lot of work. “You develop a Flip, you work hard. You develop a restaurant, you work hard. But in the end, it’s just about doing the right thing for the world.”

And that’s when Kaplan launches into the ways Melt will change the world. There will be a “round up” philanthropic program to encourage customers “to start the conversation about world hunger.” Customers can round-up the total of their purchase (i.e., a $5.75 purchase can be rounded up to $6.00) and the additional amount (.25) will be donated to charitable organizations fighting world hunger. Additionally, staff members at each restaurant location will choose a local hunger-fighting charitable organization in its neighborhood and develop a specialized philanthropic program.

“It’s about thinking how fortunate you are to afford a meal for $9,” says Kaplan. “And everything is recycled. It’s about a conscious responsibility to the world.”

It’s also about real estate, which is obviously very import to Kaplan’s restaurant chain. He cites Ron Johnson, the man responsible for Apple’s retail strategy, execution and performance, as a role model in this task. The next restaurant will open in San Francisco’s Embarcadero One. Kaplan is also working on getting an alcohol license.