Leaf, creator of the LeafPresenterTM, a tablet specifically designed for commerce, today announced it has closed $20 million in its first round of institutional funding from Heartland Payment Systems, one of the nation’s largest payments processors and a leading provider of merchant business solutions.
“While discussing a major distribution deal with Heartland, it became clear that we have much deeper synergies than simply selling together. Heartland is spearheading a new wave of innovation across the industry that aligns with our mission of creating an open platform that empowers business owners to aggregate valuable services under one digital fingerprint,” said Aron Schwarzkopf, co-founder and CEO of Leaf. “Local merchants have very different needs, so enabling their success with new technology is all about giving them options to create an experience that’s most valuable for them and their customers. Our flexible platform lets merchants choose processing services from Heartland or any number of other providers, as well as vertical-specific POS applications from Leaf or any other player in the industry.”
“We look forward to working with Leaf and a consortium of service providers to advance how merchants gain advantage in this increasingly omni-channel world,” said Bob Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland. “Leaf’s platform is truly open in the sense of allowing business owners the freedom to work with the payments and business solution providers that they deem best for their individual businesses. Leaf’s innovative approach represents a major paradigm shift in hospitality and retail technology – one that enables operators to affordably and quickly integrate and leverage exciting new technologies as they adapt to the ever-changing business landscape.”
The funding will accelerate Leaf’s mission to provide a unified, open commerce platform that redefines the way brick and mortar merchants operate.
Leaf empowers local merchants to run and grow their businesses by providing a mobile payment platform built for local commerce. Leaf’s cost-effective product helps retail stores, restaurants, and other local merchants improve the speed and ease of checkout and offers easy-to-use business management, analytics, and customer engagement. By making the complex tasks of running a business easy, Leaf allows merchants to spend more time focusing on what’s important – the needs of their customers.
By Lolita A. Alford