Sales terminal provider Own, which aims to disrupt the point-of-sale technology space with a dedicated tablet device, has secured USD1.2m in seed funding in a round led by Detroit Venture Partners. Additional contributors include Blue Water Angels, Vineyard Capital, Compuware Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and First Step Fund, with a number of individual investors also participating. “The capital will be used to usher in Own’s re-imagination of retail and the way customers and business interact,” says founder Verdi Ergün.
Own’s tablet devices, which are built by Asus, retail for USD1,300 each, with a USD150 per month charge for the company’s cloud-based point-of-sale service. Terminals are equipped with standard credit card equipment as well as customer tracking, business intelligence, deals management and social media marketing tools, and are designed to provide a more complete solution than products such as Square’s free credit card-scanning dongle.
Founded in 2009 in Michigan, the company announced plans to move to San Francisco at the end of September to help accelerate its growth. Recent additions to Own’s advisory board include Nik Harris, head of North American integration at InMobi, and Scott Crosby, COO of Euclid, a customer tracking startup that aims to provide a physical, in-store equivalent of Google Analytics.
Whitepapers
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