Updated at 1:15 p.m.
PROVIDENCE – Restaurant-technology company Upserve Inc. announced a dual investment and partnership with Vista Equity Partners on Thursday morning.
“Our goal is to deliver world-class solutions to help the restaurant industry, so restaurateurs can focus on providing great hospitality to their guests,” said Angus Davis, founder and CEO of Upserve, in prepared remarks. “Vista’s financial strength and extensive software and data experience make them the clear partner to help us realize our plans for growth and investments in our expanding product suite for restaurants.”
In its release announcing the investment, Upserve said that it manages more than $11 billion in annual transaction volume, which included 32 million active diners in the last 12 months, which itself represented more than 23 million meals per month. In addition to its own proprietary products and services, Upserve has created a marketplace that integrates more than 25 platform partner solutions.
Financial details of the investment were not immediately available. However, Vista says that it has more than $30 billion in cumulative capital investments, having represented more than $78 billion in represented transaction value.
“Upserve’s market leadership, culture of innovation, and passion to help their customers succeed all combine to create a unique opportunity. We’re pleased to welcome Upserve into the Vista family,” said Alan Cline, principal at Vista Equity Partners and co-head of the Vista Foundation Fund. “We look forward to helping the Upserve team continue its exciting growth and expansion in the years to come.”
In a conversation with PBN, Upserve CEO Angus Davis said that the company has decided not to talk about the size of the investment, as the company is trying to focus on its customer base, but did note that the investment was “far in excess of the total capital invested to date,” implying the investment was substantial, saying that an investment from Vista is akin to entering the “big leagues.”
Instead, Davis wanted to focus on the company’s growth and the growth of the small businesses he works with, pointing to the three-product suite that Upserve currently provides and talked about where the system could be expanded to what he called a “more-comprehensive one-stop-shop.”
Currently the company offers a point-of-sale service, Breadcrumb, an analytics platform, Upserve HQ, and Upserve Payment, a restaurant payment service. Davis wants to “grow the suite,” to lessen the number of vendors a restaurant has to deal with to operate a business. Davis talked about the possibilities for potential suite expansion such as an inventory system, a marketing program, a reservation system, POS-supported delivery, and staff scheduling.
When asked what the investment meant for Upserve, Davis said the exciting part was the opportunity that more capital allows. It could mean more acquisitions, such as Upserve’s Breadcrumb acquisition last year, or it could be a growth of in-house engineering. “It’s hard to predict the opportunity,” he said.
What is certain, is that Davis sees growth in Upserve’s future, “We’re excited.”
One need not worry whether all this success might lure Davis away from the Ocean State, either. After talking about Upserve’s office expansions in San Francisco and New York, Davis made a point to note that in five years, his company has grown from 33 employees in Providence, to about 200, about two-thirds of Upserve’s workforce.
“We’re committed to Providence,” he said.
Upserve was recently named one of the region’s Best Places To Work by PBN and Best Companies Group.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor.
