Website upserve.com Founded 2009 | Founder Angus Davis | |
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Industry Direct Marketing, Software Products Rich Internet application Headquarters Providence, Rhode Island, United States Key people Angus Davis, Josh Kopelman, Reid Hoffman Profiles | ||
Upserve in action sales and servers
Upserve, originally Swipely, is a service that sells payments, analytics, and marketing tools to local merchants. The online software works with point-of-sale systems and terminals used by independent businesses including restaurants, salons, boutiques, grocers and other retailers without additional hardware. Merchants in the Upserve network use the product to interact with customer spending, social media, and other data.
Contents
- Upserve in action sales and servers
- Upserve logbook in action
- History and services
- Financials and expansion
- Reception
- References
In 2013, Forbes magazine included Swipely in its list of the top 100 “America’s Most Promising Companies.” Upserve’s CEO, Angus Davis, was named to Forbes list of “America’s Most Promising CEOs Under 35.”
Upserve logbook in action
History and services
Swipely was founded in 2009 by Angus Davis, the co-founder of Tellme Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007. Swipely was formerly a social network in which members shared their purchases with friends. After its launch, Swipely was often compared to another social shopping website called Blippy.
Swipely officially launched on May 11, 2010 as an invite-only, social shopping service that allowed users to share information about their purchases. In February 2011, Swipely evolved into a loyalty platform for local merchants to reward repeat customers. The loyalty service began in Rhode Island and expanded to Boston in December 2011 with 150 participating local merchants. In April 2012, the “Main Street Marketing Manager” loyalty platform for small businesses launched nationally with an update that included customer-specific communications such as “thank you” messages and targeted offers.
As of December 2012, Swipely expanded its loyalty service to become an all-in-one payments, analytics, and marketing solution for local merchants. Swipely’s loyalty service works with a merchant’s current credit card point-of-sales system with no additional cost. The “Winter 2013” release added new features such as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to keep track of customers, Swipely Heat Map to monitor a merchant’s hourly sales performance, and a partnership with American Express that provides next-day funding on American Express transactions. The Winter 2013 upgrade also tied into social media, and illustrates to merchants how weather, Facebook posts, and other factors impact their customers’ buying patterns.
Swipely changed its name to Upserve in March 2016.
Financials and expansion
The Providence start-up was the first Rhode Island-based software company to raise $7.5 million in Series A venture capital. In all, Swipely raised $8.5 million in funds. Founder and CEO Angus Davis sits on Swipely's board of directors along with Danny Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, and Josh Kopelman, partner at First Round Capital. Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock and co-founder and executive chairman at LinkedIn, is a board observer. Additional investors include Lowercase Capital led by Chris Sacca, and angel investor Ron Conway.
In December 2012, the monthly sales transactions processed through Swipely’s system exceeded $12 million, an increase from $4 million a month in September 2012. Approximately $250 million in sales were processed on the Swipely platform during that same period, and merchants used the platform to review data on 500,000 customers.
As of February 2013, Swipely has more than $400 million in sales under management, with data on more than 875,000 consumers for several hundred merchant-clients.
Reception
Swipely was named one of Forbes magazine’s “America’s Most Promising Companies” in 2013. The company is the first Rhode Island-based firm on this Forbes list. CEO Davis has also been included on the Forbes list of “America’s Most Promising CEOs Under 35.”