Sarah Jacobson 
SpotOn, Inc. a technology-driven payment and software services provider, has secured a $125 million Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $1.875 billion. This latest round of funding brings the total number of investors to 23, raising SpotOn’s total investment to more than $400 million since its founding in 2013.
The company’s innovative suite of products has earned it the trust and admiration of customers from merchants, restaurants, convenience stores and banks across the U.S., with more pilots planned outside the U.S next year. SpotOn is proud to be the first non-bank product provider financing small businesses with credit across multiple industries in the United States for over three years. The company also provides financial products enabling merchants to access capital for their business—enhancing its mission to show appreciation to small businesses nationwide by providing tools that make running their business easier, faster and more secure daily.
SpotOn customers receive priority access to business data tools that help them save time and increase revenue through inventory management, marketing automation, loyalty programs and other features tailored specifically for their line of work. In addition, the Series C funding will be allocated for continued product expansion and geographical expansion with branches opening up in San Francisco later this month and Phoenix soon after that, followed by another yet unnamed city which will follow late autumn 2020.
Overview of SpotOn
SpotOn, a software provider that offers tools for sales, marketing, payments, insights, and customer engagement, has recently raised $125 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). This new round of funding has valued SpotOn at $1.875 billion, tripling its original valuation.
Let’s take a closer look at SpotOn and what this new round of funding means for the business.
What is SpotOn?
SpotOn is an up-and-coming FinTech company that offers innovative technology solutions to small and medium businesses across the United States. The company’s mission is to power businesses with data and help them maximise revenue through marketing automation, data analytics, and customizable software. With proven success in helping merchants grow their business and increase customer loyalty, SpotOn has achieved a major milestone with its most recent funding round tripling its valuation to $1.875B.
SpotOn provides software solutions allowing merchants to automate online ordering, billing, payments and loyalty programs. This empowers merchants to effectively track consumer data in real-time while enabling faster decision making processes — helping them drive more revenue. In addition, by leveraging SpotOn’s predictive analytics capabilities, consumers can better understand customer buying patterns, leading to improved marketing campaigns that boost overall sales volume.
One of SpotOn’s core advantages is its wide array of integrations ranging from CRM solutions such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics to accounting software like QuickBooks and Intacct. This vast array of integrations allows customers extensive access to connect all their systems into one comprehensive platform for easy management — removing the need for manual integration or customised system integrations.
In short, SpotOn is a powerful all-encompassing FinTech platform designed for small and medium-sized enterprises looking for cost effective ways to manage their business’s day-to-day operations and their customer’s purchase habits – allowing them to create loyal customers over time while simultaneously driving an increase in sales volume.
What services does SpotOn offer?
SpotOn is a platform offering integrated tools to help small businesses run more efficiently and make smarter decisions. This suite of tools includes payment processing, customer management, employee management, marketing automation and analytics. Each tool works together in an easy-to-use platform to help businesses take control of their customer relationships, loyalty programs, customer engagement, and marketing campaigns.
The technology behind SpotOn’s premium services can be found across its suite of products that run on the SpotOn platform. For example, business owners have access to payment processing tools such as debit card payments and digital wallet transactions; automated customer management tools such as Smarter Analysis, which allow customers to rate their experience with different businesses; and eCommerce capabilities that enable businesses to drive sales on their websites or through their Facebook pages.
The SpotOn platform also includes advanced analytics capabilities that allow business owners to track customer engagement trends, analyse key performance metrics in real time, understand consumer behaviour patterns for marketing strategies adjustment and optimization. In addition, the intuitive user interface makes it easy for business owners of any size to quickly understand the data presented in charts, graphs and reports to immediately identify improvement areas.
Additionally, SpotOn integration capabilities seamlessly connect your payment processors like PayPal or square with the back office systems you already use like QuickBooks or Xero. That helps save time and money while streamlining business operations without jumping between multiple systems throughout your day-to-day activities.
SpotOn raises $125M in a16z-led Series D, triples valuation to $1.875B
SpotOn, a software solutions provider for local businesses, recently raised $125M in a Series D funding round led by a16z. This investment has seen their valuation triple to a total of $1.875B. This is the company’s first major round of funding since the pandemic’s start.
Let’s take a closer look at the details of the investment and how it will affect SpotOn.
Investors
The Series D funding round, led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, included participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Utz Capital. The round of financing brings the total amount raised by SpotOn to date to more than $205M in equity and debt.
This latest investment raises SpotOn’s valuation to an impressive $1.875B — tripling their initial valuation of $625M when they announced their successful Series C late last year. With this newest capital injection, SpotOn will focus on expanding its product development and engineering team as the company continues to grow its business into other global markets.
The new investment will also deepen the relationships between SpotOn and several strategic partners recently joining the company, like Adyen (payments processing) and Credit Karma (credit analysis/decision-making). These partnerships allow SpotOn to offer customers even more specialised services while increasing efficiencies across departments, including onboarding, support operations, compliance, fraud prevention, and more.
Valuation
SpotOn, which provides a payment processing platform to small and medium businesses (including restaurants), has announced a $125 million Series D investment led by Andreessen Horowitz. This latest funding round valued the San Francisco-based startup at $1.875 billion, three times its earlier valuation of $625 million when it closed a Series C in December 2019. As a result, the firm now stands among the most valuable financial technology companies in the U.S., with payments rival Stripe currently valued at over $36 billion.
SpotOn’s Series D also saw participation from First Round Capital, 8VC, Draper Associates and Initialized, who had participated in earlier rounds for the company alongside former investors such as Menlo Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures. SpotOn is set to use these funds to further expand its services — primarily its payment processing platform — to small businesses across various verticals including restaurants, retail outlets and beauty salons, while boosting its overall product offerings.
The firm also plans on job creation, product development investments, and expanding into new markets beyond the U.S., such as Mexico and Canada, over 2021-22.
Use of Funds
SpotOn’s Series D funding will further fuel international expansion efforts and continue R&D investments. Additionally, the firm plans to dedicate resources towards further consolidating the payments landscape and continuing to deliver integrated software and payment solutions for small businesses.
Specifically, SpotOn will focus on enhancing its account creation tools, contactless payments solutions, and custom loyalty programs to help close the digital gap for local businesses. The company also has a dedicated team focused on marketing services such as search engine optimization, email campaigns, online analysis alerts and advertising for small business owners eager to find strategies that fit their needs.
Impact of the Investment
SpotOn recently announced that it has raised $125M in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). With this funding round, the company has tripled its valuation from $625M to $1.875B.
This massive influx of capital will have multiple implications. Let’s explore the impact it will have on the company.
Expansion Plans
SpotOn, a Chicago-based technology firm, has raised $150 million in a financing round that values the company at $1.875 billion. This round of funding was led by IVP and included participation from existing investors Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Adage Capital Management.
The additional capital will enable SpotOn to expand its platform to new vertical markets, enhance its portfolio of customer-facing products and services, and continue investing in areas such as AI and machine learning.
The move is also beneficial in identifying new revenue channels while strengthening strategic partnerships with global leaders across various industries. In addition, the new capital is expected to catalyse growth in different regions such as Latin America and Europe. This will create an opportunity for growth regionally and globally by tapping into the international customer base, which will include retail, hospitality, healthcare and more.
As SpotOn builds on its expansion plans throughout the next 12 months it continues to confirm its linchpin position for enabling connected commerce for small businesses globally with state-of-the-art technology solutions.
New Product Offerings
The investment is expected to allow SpotOn to accelerate its trajectory towards achieving its mission of enabling small businesses to optimise their customer experience and successfully compete in an increasingly digital world. In particular, the additional capital will fuel the continued development of SpotOn’s suite of products, including point-of-sale (POS) solutions, loyalty programs, eCommerce services, contactless payment technology, analytics and insights.
Moreover, this expanded capability will enable SpotOn to deliver new product offerings faster. For example, SpotOn recently added data-driven revenue management capabilities for restaurants — allowing owners to evaluate sales item performance and gain visibility into day-to-day operations — and partnerships with leading providers such as Verifone for its mobile payments app.
With the additional capital from this latest funding round, supported by top investors including TPG Growth and Comcast Ventures among others, SpotOn plans to double down on innovation by creating more best-in-class services for small business customers such as:
- Omni-channel marketing tools.
- Integrated payroll.
- Vendor/inventory management.
- Content localizations services.
- End-to-end customer support centres.
- APIs designed specifically for developers and integrators.
- More personalised reporting experiences.
All in all these advances intend to further bolster the efficiency of operations and performance of small businesses across multiple industries.
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