Lightspeed eCom: How it all began
Lightspeed offers an e-commerce platform that serves both retailers and restaurants, however Lightspeed’s history began with POS. The company was founded by Dax DaSilva in 2005, and he still serves as the President and CEO of Lightspeed. It was initially founded to provide software solutions to brick and mortar retailers, but since acquiringSEOshop in 2015 has served as an e-commerce platform.
When DaSilva first began the company its primary function was to provide payment solutions for Apple in the days before Apple had its own retail operations. By 2011 Lightspeed had greatly expanded, and was named “Fastest Growing Company in Quebec” by Profit Magazine. A year later, they raised a round of funding and further expanded their efforts to help retailers more easily use technology to drive business in their physical locations, bringing a digital experience into the store with purposefully created software and apps. At that point, roughly 10,000 retailers were using Lightspeed.
By 2014, the company boasted $6 billion in transactions through its products. 2014 was also the year that Lightspeed began its foray into point of sale solutions for restaurants.
Merely a year later, the company grew to $10 billion in sales transactions and 25,000 customers using its platform. In 2015 the company first ventured into e-commerce solutions with the acquisition of SEOshop. Then, in 2016, Lightspeed announced that it planned to go public in about two years.
If you would like to learn how Lightspeed can make your online retail experience better, please contact Liquid Retailer. We know how to use Lightspeed’s e-commerce platform to manage your store and improve your customers’ experience.