Posse and Beat the Q merge to create new business

Shopping recommendation platform Posse and mobile ordering startup Beat the Q have merged, creating a new startup, with a more engaged user base, and more efficient on boarding system.

Posse allows its users to find and recommend shops around them, while Beat the Q allows consumers to order and pay for coffee from cafés via an app, avoiding lines and wait times.

Posse’s strength is its network of shoppers and owners and its discovery engine, Beat the Q founder Adam Theobald says. Through that engaged network, it will be easier to sign up shops for Beat the Q’s mobile payment offering.

“Using Posse, we’ll be able to get Beat the Q in front of more and more people, so I think that’s important,” he says.

Posse users suggest their favourite stores, which the platform then contacts and offers those stores a communication portal on Posse, through which they communicate with their customers. It’s at that point, the new startup will be able to offer those businesses Beat the Q’s mobile payment system too.

Theobald says that’s a big advantage, because traditionally Beat the Q had relied on customers who loved the app, telling their cafes about it.

“Some cafés came through our partners in coffee wholesalers, point-of-sale players, they’ve all been fantastic, but our best salesperson was a customer walking into a café,” he says.

Those engaged customers, along with its mobile payments platform, are what Beat the Q brings that can help Posse. The average Beat the Q user was using the platform to make a purchase 10 times a month.

“Posse has a burst of activity at the start. With people finding venues, uploading venues, and Beat the Q has these ongoing transactions,”

Theobald joins Posse founder Rebekah Campbell as co-founder and co-CEO of this new startup. With regards to equity, Theobald says “it’s an arrangement of approximate equals”, made easier to negotiate thanks to a shared vision.

“Our vision is to facilitate relationships between shop owners and customers while at the same time removing all of the friction from the transaction, from ordering to payment,” he says.

The new startup will have half a million users and 56,000 shop relationships, and will handle over 400,000 transactions a month. Between them, the two businesses have raised a combined $5 million to date.

In the next few weeks the startup will reveal a new product which includes the best features of Posse, Beat the Q, and Beat the Q’s recent acquisition e-Coffee Card.

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