{"id":5008,"date":"2020-10-21T18:59:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T18:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymentfacilitator.com\/?p=5008"},"modified":"2023-02-20T15:45:13","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T22:45:13","slug":"small-business-marketing-platform-and-pf-fivestars-raises-52-5-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/archive\/small-business-marketing-platform-and-pf-fivestars-raises-52-5-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Business Marketing Platform and PF Fivestars Raises $52.5 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Payment facilitator Fivestars announced last week that it has raised $52.5 million, bringing its total funding to $145.5 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fivestars operates a marketing and loyalty platform for small businesses. The company also offers payments capability integrated into its platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest fundraise combined debt with a Series D equity round that was led by Salt Partners, according to TechCrunch<\/a>. Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM Ventures, Menlo Ventures and HarbourVest Partners participated, the article said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fivestars co-founder and CTO Matt Doka told PaymentFacilitator that the company raised the money prior to the coronavirus shutdown that began in March but chose not to announce it until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe timing didn\u2019t feel right back then as our customers were suffering through the effects of the shutdowns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the company prioritized helping merchants at that time, giving away more than $1 million worth of credits and providing free messaging upgrades to enable businesses to communicate with their customers about changes to their operations. The company also began offering the first month on its platform free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that time, Fivestars has not seen a decrease in demand, Doka said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn fact, the pandemic accelerated the need for updated technology,\u201d he said. \u201cSmall businesses are realizing that digitalization is no longer an option, but a matter of survival so our business model to support them with both a network and technology is working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs both a loyalty marketing platform and a PF, we\u2019re uniquely positioned to support their journey and meet the unprecedented demand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company launched Fivestars Pay<\/a> \u2013 the POS system for retailers that is integrated into its platform \u2013 last year. It became a PF with the help of Infinicept<\/a>, which provided the company with the payments infrastructure, technology and expertise it needed to get up and running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the company is able to offer payments with only one incremental full-time employee managing payment operations, Doka said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Fivestars, the pandemic has driven home the need for businesses to take advantage of financial technology to build relationships with customers. The company\u2019s payments product is an important part of building out its network, Doka said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith Fivestars powering payments, a new customer is added to a merchant\u2019s marketing database with each swipe, dip or tap of a credit card, allowing merchants to retarget customers and bring them back in the door again. Our platform connects with 500+ POS systems, allowing easy access in a fragmented market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the 60 million shoppers in Fivestars\u2019 network spent $3 billion across the 14,000 merchants on its platform, Doka said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Payment facilitator Fivestars announced last week that it has raised $52.5 million, bringing its total funding to $145.5 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5008"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9197,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008\/revisions\/9197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}