Square announces partnership with ex-competitors TouchBistro and Vend

San Francisco-based payments company Square has announced a partnership and integration with New Zealand’s Vend and Toronto’s TouchBistro, two former competitors, thereby offering the current customers of both companies access to all of the services that Square offers, including payment processing, accepting Apple Pay, depositing money, or accessing a loan through Square Capital.
TouchBistro has focused on developing point-of-sale for the food and drink retail sector, focusing on restaurants, cafes, bars, food trucks, and other food and drink venues.
“This partnership has been many years in the making, we are excited to finally bring Square’s elegant, best in class hardware and processing to our customers,” said TouchBistro CEO and founder Alex Barrotti. “Together, TouchBistro and Square deliver a great combination for hospitality venues of any size.”
Last year, TouchBistro rolled out its POS suite for the new iPad Pro, TouchBistro 7.0, and expanded its overall product offering, introducing a Kitchen Display System (KDS), Customer Facing Display (CFD) and Menu App.
TouchBistro has since been ranked as the number one top-grossing food and beverage app in 37 countries on the Apple App Store.
Servers in the hospitality industry use the TouchBistro iPad POS system to take customer orders, whether tableside or at the bar, and then instantly transmit the order to the kitchen or bar for preparation, while also automatically calculating the bill or splitting the tab according to customer preferences.
“Today’s partnership with TouchBistro and Vend is a natural fit for our companies and means that more sellers will have access to payments and financial services to reinvest in their business,” said Square Business Lead Francoise Brougher, an executive whom Square swiped from Google in 2013.
In March, as part of its growth strategy specifically aimed at attracting larger customers, Square released its API for other companies to process payments through Square and using Square hardware, even if they didn’t use Square’s flagship point-of-sale software, called Register.
The strategy appears to be paying off, with payments by Square client merchants who recorded more than $125,000 per year in sales growing 61% year over year.
This new Square integration will be initially for US-based customers, with TouchBistro’s clients able to use Square hardware and sign-up from within TouchBistro.
Last year, TouchBistro closed a $6 million Series A round of funding, through existing investors Kensington Capital Partners, Relay Ventures and Difference Capital, while adding a strategic partner in the form of Danish-founded, U.K.-based JUST EAT.