Leaf, a Boston-based mPOS start-up with its own purpose-built tablet, has scored $20 million in funding from processing giant Heartland Payment Systems.
Unlike its many rivals, such as Square and PayPal Here, Leaf has eschewed plug-in dongles for smartphones and instead built its own tablet, complete with a magnetic stripe card reader, NFC, EMV, and cameras, making it capable of accepting payments via traditional cards, newer methods such as PayPal and LevelUp, and mobile wallets.
The Heartland money will be used to step up manufacturing of the LeafPresenter tablet and to hire developers for the company's cloud-based business analytics and management portal, LeafBusiness, and its appstore, which lets anyone build their own customised apps for the tablet.
Heartland has promised to develop its own value-added apps on the Leaf platform - including for payroll, and mobile and online ordering. In addition, it has joined Leaf's network of distribution partners, helping to bring the technology to its vast customer-base.
Aron Schwarzkopf, CEO, Leaf, says: "While discussing a major distribution deal with Heartland, it became clear that we have much deeper synergies than simply selling together. Heartland is spearheading a new wave of innovation across the industry that aligns with our mission of creating an open platform that empowers business owners to aggregate valuable services under one digital fingerprint."
Bob Carr, CEO, Heartland, adds: "Leaf's innovative approach represents a major paradigm shift in hospitality and retail technology - one that enables operators to affordably and quickly integrate and leverage exciting new technologies as they adapt to the ever-changing business landscape."