Shift4 expands footprint with VenueNext buy

Article posted by Coliseum, March 11^th, 2021

Image: Shift4Payments

Pennsylvania (US)-headquartered Shift4 Payments (NYSE: FOUR), a leading provider of integrated payment processing solutions, recently announced the acquisition of San Francisco (US)-based VenueNext, a leader in next-generation mobile commerce, point-of-sale and loyalty solutions for venues.

A statement on the Shift4Payments website read, “This acquisition enhances Shift4’s presence and capabilities in a number of large and growing verticals such as stadiums and arenas, while significantly expanding the company’s total addressable market with entry into entertainment, universities, theme parks, airports, and other verticals.”

Shift4 Payments (NYSE: FOUR) is a leading provider of integrated payment processing and technology solutions, delivering a complete omnichannel ecosystem that extends beyond payments to include a wide range of commerce-enabling services. The company’s technologies help power over 350 software providers in numerous industries, including hospitality, retail, F&B, ecommerce, lodging, gaming, and many more. With over 7,000 sales partners, the company securely processed more than $200 billion in payments volume for over 200,000 businesses in 2019.

VenueNext is a next-generation point-of-sale company transforming the way consumers shop, purchase and pay. Their ecosystem of products combines physical and digital solutions to create a frictionless shopping experience, offering products such as point-of-sale solutions, online ordering, branded apps, and branded payments. VenueNext’s powerful platform makes commerce simple for consumers – and easy for brands to incentivize and reward their most valuable customers for their loyalty.

VenueNext began in 2014 with the 68,500-capacity Levi’s® Stadium in California and the stadium’s tenant – the National Football League (NFL) team San Francisco 49ers and has since gone on to power mobile-first, frictionless commerce in arenas and stadia, theme parks, varsities, corporate cafes and theaters.

The statement on the Shift4 Payments website further stated that VenueNext is used by teams in every major professional sports league, in addition to colleges and other business verticals such as amusement parks and corporate campuses, all of whom will now have access to the combined offering from Shift4. The company’s product suite includes mobile ordering, full venue point-of-sale software, branded mobile applications (turnkey white label apps for teams/venues), and a mobile wallet/loyalty engine. This best-in-class mobile technology will add value across the entire Shift4 ecosystem.

This acquisition uniquely positions Shift4 as the only vertically integrated provider to power every aspect of in-venue commerce, including software (mobile and point of sale [POS]), transaction gateway and payment processing capabilities. This one-stop-shop solution delivers a compelling value proposition to venues by reducing cost and complexity similar to Shift4’s end-to-end offering in other verticals.

Said Jared Isaacman, Shift4 Payments CEO, “At Shift4, we thrive on eliminating complexity and reducing cost for the most demanding commerce environments. We have taken the same successful vertically-integrated strategy that has served us incredibly well in the hospitality and restaurant industries, and brought it to ecommerce with Shift4Shop and now to sports stadiums, entertainment venues and theme parks with this exciting acquisition.”

Added the head honcho, “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome VenueNext to the Shift4 organization. We love their focus on the ‘fan and patron experience’ and making commerce simple and more enjoyable. In addition to jointly pursuing new opportunities, we intend to immediately offer Shift4’s end-to-end payments solution to VenueNext’s sizable existing customer portfolio which spans across virtually every category of large venue across the country and internationally.”

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