Revel, maker of an iPad-based point-of-sales system that includes both software and hardware, today announced that not only has it become profitable after its first year of market availability, but it’s also opening an iPad marketplace for add-ons to its POS system. The Revel Marketplace provides a way for merchants and businesses to browse and easily install add-ons for their POS installations, including Facebook and Twitter integration; loyalty and rewards programs like Perkville; payment methods like Dwolla and LevelUp; daily deal services like Groupon and LivingSocial, and more.
This opens up a lot of possibilities for Revel merchants, to essentially build the custom POS they need. One example of an integration Revel CEO and co-founder Lisa Falzone shared with me in an interview is a sales tracker than can automatically push out ads to web-based advertising networks when it detects that sales are slowing, in real-time. So far, the marketplace offers just over a dozen integrations, but plenty more are in the works.
“A lot of different startups in Silicon Valley are interested in it, because they’re looking at our real-time sales data, our inventory tracking, and they’re finding ways to make restaurants [and other businesses] more efficient,” Falzone said. While there are way for companies to build similar tools for existing, legacy POS setups, the open, cloud-based nature of Revel and the API it provides makes creating apps that leverage its data much easier than with older, non-connected systems that aren’t necessarily designed for third-party integrations.
Revel’s marketplace offerings will provide merchants with both free and paid integrations, and the POS-maker itself will work out different revenue sharing arrangements with companies on a case-by-case basis. Revel will also review developer submissions, to ensure that there’s a consistent, high level of quality maintained across its third-party offerings.
Revel has been on a roll, raising a $3.7 million Series A in May of 2011 and apparently hitting their stride in terms of revenue generation on the back of that relatively small amount, impressive for a company whose product involves quite a few hardware components. There’s also its partnership with Best Buy’s Geek Squad, which provides a service and installation arm for its customers, while avoiding the costs of maintaining that kind of force on staff at all times. Falzone said that’s what’s next for the company is a big hiring push, to grow the 30-person team, particularly by adding new experienced sales staff and additional engineers.