Lightspeed Commerce was founded in 2005 by Dax Dasilva in Montreal. He started by building point-of-sale software for Apple retailers — a niche that gave the company its first foothold in the market. Over time, Lightspeed expanded into a full commerce platform serving retail, restaurant, and golf businesses.
The platform combines POS hardware and software with e-commerce, payments, and business intelligence tools. Merchants can manage in-store and online sales from a single backend. Lightspeed Payments processes transactions directly, eliminating the need for third-party payment processors.
Lightspeed went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2019 and later listed on the NYSE. The company went on an acquisition spree between 2020 and 2022, buying ShopKeep, Vend, Ecwid, and NuORDER to rapidly expand its capabilities and customer base. Revenue for fiscal year 2024 reached approximately $900 million.
Lightspeed Restaurant handles table management, menu configuration, kitchen display systems, and delivery platform integrations. Lightspeed Retail manages complex inventory for businesses with high SKU counts — bike shops, electronics stores, and fashion boutiques are common users.
The Advanced Insights product uses transaction data across Lightspeed’s merchant network to provide benchmarking, trend analysis, and actionable recommendations. The company employs roughly 2,500 people across Montreal, Toronto, New York, Amsterdam, and other cities worldwide.
