Financial technology innovators, particularly those in the payments space such as Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET), are in great demand for M&A by larger financial services companies
SmallCapPower | January 23, 2018: Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET) provides a mobile app payment platform that combines payment, communication & rewards, targeting the restaurant, cannabis, fitness & wellness, and cryptocurrency industries. Through the Glance Pay app, users are provided an all-encompassing service engineered to provide payment convenience and security to the customer and the business with advanced tools to mitigate fraud. Alongside the quick ease of completing payments without the need for a card machine, Glance Pay offers expense tracking, rewards, and records, which could then easily be emailed to other secured users, as an accountant or bookkeeper. Glance’s primary strength is to enable one secure, convenient location to store all the users’ payment information.
Glance Technologies is in the initial phase as a mobile payments innovator, having generated less than $1.0 million in revenues since its inception. However, the Company continues to build its clientele rapidly and has signed more than 100 locations in Q3/2017 alone, taking the total restaurants signed to over 500 nationwide. Additionally, entry into the retail and service space, as well as more licensing agreements, could catapult the revenues multi-fold over the coming quarters.
Investment thesis
- Developer of a streamlined mobile payment app for restaurants
- Large market opportunity
- A potential acquisition target
Glance Pay – a revolutionary mobile payment app for restaurants
Glance Technologies developed Glance Pay, a streamlined payment app that allows customers to pay their restaurant bill instantly with their mobile device without waiting for a credit card machine. In addition to enabling mobile payments, the app also provides a range of useful features including in-app marketing, geo-targeted digital coupons, customer feedback, in-merchant messaging and custom rewards programs. Glance Pay uses high-end security technology, enabling users to buy and sell with confidence in person and online.
Multiple revenues streams
Glance Technologies’ revenue model can be broadly categorized into transaction fee from restaurants and licensing revenues. Similar to credit card companies, Glance Technologies charges transaction fees from restaurants and receives multiple revenues from its value-added services, such as in-app advertising, promotions, loyalty program fees, and data analytics fee.
Glance Technologies generates most of its revenues from licensing. Most of the Company’s licensing revenue are sourced from CannaPay Financial Inc, Activ Pay and Euro Asia pay. CannaPay Financial is a partly-owned subsidiary of Glance Technologies, and has been granted a worldwide, non-exclusive license to use its patents, trademarks and technology to make, market and sell a mobile payment app designed for legal marijuana purchases and delivery, which uses the Glance mobile payment platform as its base technology.
Large market opportunity
In 2016, Stats Canada reported sales of restaurants and bars was $64.9B, growing 6.3% Y/Y. The restaurant industry is the seventh-largest out of sixteen, with ~1.2M employed, making up 6.8% of the workforce. In addition, according to Future Market Insights, the global Mobile Payments market is anticipated to grow to $2,849B in 2020E from $392B in 2014, equating to a compound annual growth rate of 39.2%.
Glance Technologies is rapidly building a valuable network of restaurants & consumers on its platform across Vancouver and Canada, with potential for expanding into the larger U.S. market. The development of its remote launch kit in Q1/2017 allowed Glance Technologies to not only launch in Vancouver, but also remotely in Toronto, Edmonton, Victoria, Cranbrook, and Chilliwack. Over the past two quarters, the Company has been able to sign hundreds of locations, over 100 in Q3/2017 alone, including the Ricky’s Restaurant chain with 90 locations, along with signing its first hotel, the Best Western Sands Vancouver, for room service. In addition, Glance Technologies diversified its market space into the retail and services industry, further expanding its target market. 
A potential acquisition target
Financial technology innovators, particularly those in the payments space, are in great demand for M&A by larger financial services companies. A number of deals in this space have taken place over the past year, including Alibaba’s acquisition of U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram; Daimler Financial Services’ purchase of mobile payments solutions e-Wallet technology provider PayCash; Paypal’s acquisition of payment management company TIO Networks; and Vantiv’s purchase of Worldpay, amongst various other deals. In fact, Glance’s co-founder and CEO, Desmond Griffin had innovated a payment app for parking, PayByPhone, which was generating millions of mobile payments in over 100 cities and was bought by a UK company in 2012, and subsequently by Volkswagen Financial Services.
Outlook and valuation
Glance Technologies is in the initial phase as a mobile payments innovator, having generated less than $1.0 million in revenues primarily from licensing and marketing activities. However, the Company continues to build its clientele and has signed more than 100 locations in Q3/2017 alone, taking the total restaurants signed to more than 500. Additionally, entry into the retail and service space as well as more licensing agreements could catapult the revenues multi-fold over the coming quarters.
Disclosure: Neither the author nor his/her family own shares in the company mentioned above.
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