Smooth Commerce Picks Up $2 Million

Toronto’s Smooth Commerce has raised a $2-million growth round from new and existing investors to fuel the startup’s development of payment processing-powered smartphone apps.

The startup uses its fully integrated mobile payment and marketing platform to build custom-branded mobile apps for retailers.

Smooth Commerce is soon unveiling new features in the Balzac’s Coffee Roasters app—the first app the company launched. They’re also gearing up to launch an app for Smoke’s Poutinerie—a poutine shop that has 150 locations across North America—and Basil Box.

“Thirty per cent of Starbucks total sales comes through its mobile app, but not all brands have the ability to spend millions of dollars to build their own app. Our platform enables a quick, turnkey solution for a brand; an app that we can launch with them very quickly,” Smooth Commerce CEO Brian Deck said.

The technology and tools within Smooth Commerce’s platform help merchants manage their customer engagement, loyalty programs, order ahead services, marketing initiatives and data analytics.

“We have a strong pipeline with retailers, but raising this money will help us have the infrastructure in place to bring on more accounts and to continue developing our projects,” he added.

Smooth Commerce is working with Ingenico Group—an international player in payment hardware—on its Tetra platform, new technology they’re bringing out next year. Collaborations like those with multi-billion dollar global companies like Ingenico validate the startup’s technology and its potential, Deck said.

“We have this value added service that with any payment acquirers—any company that processes credit cards—we can fit that processing with our product,” said Deck, explaining whether merchants use Chase Payment or TD Merchant Services, Smooth Commerce can build a mobile app with the same payment system.

“Our success has been a total team effort – the leadership of a proven management team, a high-calibre Board and Advisory Group, our investors, industry partners and customers,” Deck said. “But the best is very much yet to come.”

Deck teased the company is getting ready to expand beyond the Canadian market, but they’re keeping their platform at home—for now.