Ex-Twitter Execs Join a $50 Million Funding Round for Payment And Software Provider SpotOn

Fast-growing payment technology and software provider SpotOn Transact Inc. said Wednesday that it raised $50 million in a Series B funding round that included 01 Advisors, an investment firm led by three former Twitter Inc. executives. 

SpotOn, which says its revenues increased by more than 150% in 2019, will use the funding for product development. The company provides business-management software and payment services to small and mid-size businesses, including restaurants, and is a registered independent sales organization for Merrick Bank. Last June San Francisco-based SpotOn announced a $40-million funding round.

01 Investors was founded by Dick Costolo, Twitter’s former chief executive, and two other veterans of the social network, Adam Bain, the ex-chief operating officer, and David Rivinus, the former corporate-development and investor-relations executive. The newly announced investment was their first in SpotOn, which SpotOn president RJ Horsley says has raised a total of $130 million since its 2017 founding.

“There are companies that build great products, and there are companies that build great sales teams, but it’s rare to find an organization that can do both,” Costolo, 01 managing partner, said in a statement. “SpotOn has proven an unwavering commitment to building products that matter and getting them into the hands of businesses nationwide.”

Twitter is headed by Jack Dorsey, who also is chief executive of Square Inc., a processor and software provider that competes for SMB clients in some of SpotOn’s same target industries.

SpotOn, which said it has added 5,000 clients in 2020 alone but didn’t reveal its total merchant count or payment volume, was founded by twin brothers Matt and Zach Hyman along with Chicago fintech entrepreneur Doron Friedman. The Hyman brothers sold their remaining 15% stake in the ISO they founded, Central Payment, to Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), now part of Global Payments Inc., in a 2018 deal that valued Central Payment at $840 million. TSYS and Central Payment first formed a 60-40 joint venture in 2012. 

Other participants in the recent funding round included returning investors Dragoneer Investment Group, Franklin Templeton and Epiq Capital Group.