Lightspeed Announces Acquisition of Chronogolf Amid Tremendous Annual Growth

Chronogolf team with Lightspeed CEO Dax Dasilva (far right), Lightspeed president JP Chauvet (Far Left) and Lightspeed CFO Brandon Nussey (black shirt, front of photo) in Montreal. Photo: Lightspeed

By Retail Insider

Montreal-based Lightspeed, the powerful cloud point-of-sale system for independent retailers and restaurants, announced last week that it has acquired innovative golf course facilities management company Chronogolf. Lightspeed also just announced its year-end results, which saw 36% annual growth after a highly successful initial public offering in the spring of this year. 

Montreal-based Chronogolf was an existing Lightspeed partner prior to the recent acquisition. Chronogolf is an innovative cloud-based software offering that facilitates management for golf course operators around the world. Chronogolf saw tremendous success by using the Lightspeed platform for both the retail and restaurant facets of its business software, which it combined with its booking and management solutions.

Moving forward post-acquisition, Lightspeed's inventory-rich, cloud-based software will help new and existing customers in the golf industry drive business growth and maximize efficiency. Complementing Lightspeed’s existing product offerings, such as Lightspeed Loyalty and Lightspeed Payments, the Chronogolf software will offer customers a fully-integrated point-of-sale and golf course management solution. This will provide the opportunity for these businesses to streamline their operations on one system, from pro shop to restaurant to tee sheet.

“Since Lightspeed’s inception, our focus has been to provide technology to small and medium-sized businesses in verticals with complex operations, so they can work smarter, make data-driven decisions, and create the best possible experience for their customers. Running a golf course combines retail, restaurant, and ecommerce—areas that are core to our business,” says Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO of Lightspeed. “Expanding within the golf vertical is just one example of our commitment to these complex SMBs around the world.”

As part of the acquisition, the Chronogolf team, including Co-CEO’s JD St-Martin and Guillaume Jacquet, will join Lightspeed.

Key Features of Chronogolf by Lightspeed include: 

Image/Chronogolf/Lightspeed

• Run Your Pro Shop from Anywhere: Users can track customer experience across the facility with seamless POS integration, connect to payment terminals, cash drawers, printers and terminals, and access sales and inventory data from anywhere.

• Boost Restaurant or Snack Bar Sales: Users can turn tables faster and serve guests better with the cloud-based restaurant POS that is built to handle everything from clubhouse drinks to fine dining. 

• Increased Potential Sales Opportunities: Users can follow customers from green to restaurant through seamless POS implementation, customize menus and floor plans, improve communication between front and back-of-house and boost table turnover by taking orders and payments from any location.

• Custom Integrations Powered by Lightspeed: Users can take a pro shop online by syncing the POS with Lightspeed eCom, process payments and end-of-day settlements with Lightspeed Payments, reward members and keep customers coming back with Lightspeed Loyalty, pull insightful reports to improve the business with Lightspeed Analytics, and automatically post sales data and reduce errors with Lightspeed Accounting.

• Tee Sheet: Chronogolf by Lightspeed simplifies schedules with a user-friendly tee sheet, while being able to create unlimited categories, book and reorganize tee times instantly. 

Montreal-based Lightspeed is a cloud-based ecommerce platform that powers small and medium-sized businesses in over 100 countries around the world. It’s a smart, scalable, and dependable point of sale system that offers an all-in-one solution that helps restaurants and retailers sell across channels, manage operations, engage with consumers, accept payments, and grow their business. 

Lightspeed and Chronogolf Executive team. Left-to-right in photo: Brandon Nussey, Lightspeed CFO; Dax Dasilva, Lightspeed Founder & CEO; JD St-Martin, Chronogolf Co-CEO; Guillaume Jacquet, Chronogolf Co-CEO; and JP Chauvet, Lightspeed President. Photo: Lightspeed

In March of this year, Lightspeed became one of the top 10 technology initial public offerings on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: LSPD). Lightspeed has now announced its fiscal fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2019 financial results ending March 31, which are overwhelmingly positive. 

Highlights include a full fiscal year revenue growth of 36% to $77.5-million, and a gross transaction volume which grew by $4-billion to a total of $14.5-billion. 

“It’s been a great year for Lightspeed and for our customers. Our revenue grew 36% for the full fiscal year, and we completed our initial public offering. We also added two significant new products to our overall offering. We launched Lightspeed Loyalty to both our Retail and Restaurant clients in North America and Europe, and we made Lightspeed Payments generally available to our US Retail client base in late January. All of this creates momentum toward our main goal, which is to help complex SMBs thrive in a world with rapidly changing consumer expectations,” said Mr. Dasilva. 

Lightspeed’s full fiscal financial highlights include:

• Total revenue of $77.5 million, an increase of $21.3 million or 36%, 

• Recurring Software and Payments revenue of $68.7 million, marking an increase of 34%,

• Gross profit growth of 36% to $53.9 million as compared to $39.6 million in 2018, and

• A net loss of $183.5 million as compared to a net loss of $96.2 million. (Net loss was impacted by a non‑cash charge of $191.2 million, offset by an associated $30.8 million deferred tax benefit, each related to our preferred shares which converted into common shares prior to Lightspeed’s IPO). 

LIGHTSPEED CEO AND FOUNDER DAX DASILVA PUSHING THE BUTTON TO COMMENCE TRADING ON THE MORNING OF MARCH 8, 2019. PHOTO: LIGHTSPEED

Lightspeed summarized its 2019 operational highlights to include the following points: 

• Customer locations grew by 20% to more than 49,000 as of March 31, 2019,

• Positive net dollar revenue retention (which Lightspeed says further reinforced the stickiness of the Lightspeed platform),

• A record number of new customers signed in the quarter and fiscal year was driven by strong customer momentum from complex Retailers and Restaurateurs in North America and around the world. 

• Successful launch of Lightspeed Loyalty to the Company’s retail and restaurant customer base in North America and Europe. Included strong early adoption with more than 1,500 customer locations using Lightspeed Loyalty.

• Strong initial adoption of Lightspeed Payments after launch on January 30, 2019 to U.S. Retail customers with demand coming from both new and existing clients of Lightspeed.

• Approximately one third of unique customers have now purchased more than one Lightspeed module. 

Looking forward to 2020 and beyond, Lightspeed anticipates revenue, cash flows used in operating activities and Adjusted EBITDA to be in the following ranges:

First Quarter 2020

• Revenue of $23.0 – $23.5 million

• Cash flows used in operating activities of approximately $6 million

• Adjusted EBITDA in the range of ($6 million) – ($7 million) 

Full Year 2020

• Revenue of $107 – $110 million, representing annual growth of 38-42%

• Cash flows used in operating activities of $7.5 million – $9 million

• Adjusted EBITDA in the range of ($16 million) – ($18 million)

We’ll continue to provide updates on Lightspeed as it continues on its remarkable growth trajectory while catering to independent businesses in Canada as well as worldwide. 

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