Fintech, Finance, Technology, Banking Highlights – 23 April 2018
Square buys catering platform Zesty
Square announced that it has acquired certain assets of Zesty, a catering platform that empowers companies to be healthier and more productive.
The addition of Zesty will enable Caviar, Square’s food ordering platform, to strengthen and scale its growing corporate ordering business, Caviar for Teams, and serve meals from the best restaurants across the U.S. to companies of all sizes.
“Restaurants turn to Caviar to reach more diners and grow their businesses. Expanding our corporate catering product with Zesty enables us to offer our restaurant partners another way to boost sales through higher-margin, large-format catering orders,” said Gokul Rajaram, Caviar Lead at Square. “Caviar is thriving, and we’re excited to supercharge its success with Zesty and double down on an area with great opportunity to drive more growth for our business.”
Caviar continues to grow as a full food-ordering platform, expanding from consumer delivery, to consumer pickup, and now robust catering services. One of the first food delivery platforms to offer a corporate ordering product, Caviar has offered ordering functionality for groups since 2014. Caviar for Teams, launched in 2016, has since added a sophisticated group ordering portal that offers large teams ordering options from multiple restaurants, detailed invoicing, and more. With Zesty, Caviar’s offerings now include full-fledged, white-glove corporate catering, allowing it to serve companies of all sizes.
Pivotal opens for trading on the New York Stock Exchange
Pivotal Software is announce that it has opened for trading as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol “PVTL.” Rob Mee, CEO and co-founder, marked the momentous occasion by ringing the First Trade Bell at the NYSE at 9:30 EDT.
In a blog post accompanying the announcement, Mr. Mee said, “Since Pivotal’s founding, we’ve worked toward an ambitious mission—to transform how the world builds software—and we’ve now passed an important milestone in our journey. Getting here has been both exciting and challenging, and we couldn’t have done it without our customers, our partners, and our employees.”
“Pivotal believes that businesses across every industry need to innovate at the speed of startups to succeed in a world increasingly defined by software. We are privileged to work with the world’s largest enterprises to help them transform how they use technology. In turn, these companies will create software that enriches the lives of their customers—and change the world.”
Pivotal cloud-native platform, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, drastically accelerates and streamlines software development by reducing the complexity of building, deploying and operating legacy and modern software applications. In the four years since its founding in 2013, the company grew to over 300 subscription customers. In fiscal 2018, total revenues amounted to US$509 million, including US$259 million, or 73%, growth in year-on-year subscription revenue.
TransUnion to acquire the UK’s Callcredit for £1 billion
TransUnion announced its agreement to purchase Callcredit Information Group, Ltd., the second largest and fastest growing consumer credit bureau in the U.K., headquartered in Leeds. Founded in 2000, Callcredit is a U.K.-based information solutions company that, like TransUnion, provides data, analytics and technology solutions to help businesses and consumers make informed decisions.
“TransUnion and Callcredit have strong synergies across our business models and solutions, and we share a commitment to using information to benefit consumers and global economies alike,” said Jim Peck, TransUnion’s president and chief executive officer. “Callcredit is an outstanding acquisition for TransUnion, and together, we’ll be a powerful force to deliver value to shareholders, customers and consumers across all the markets we serve.”
International expansion is a key growth strategy for TransUnion, already doing business in 33 countries. The company applies its global operating model to all acquisitions, optimizing business and operational processes. TransUnion’s innovative global solutions include trended data leader CreditVision and consumer empowerment application CreditView, as well as an array of data, fraud, decisioning, analytics and consumer identity solutions.
