This Week On Bullish: Maturity In The Payments Space

Hello team, and welcome back to another episode of Bullish, TechCrunch’s first talk show.

This week we took a look at the broader payments and fintech space1, which has recently had a number of high-profile successes. The PayPal IPO, coupled to First Data massive flotation, bookended by Square’s S-1 make it one of the hotter regions on the technology landscape.

It’s worth noting, of course, that inside of the payments-fintech world, there are a host of different problems to be solved. Not everything is a credit card swipe on a smartphone dongle, after all. At the same time, it seems that quite a lot of bets made by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists alike are maturing. Exits mean movement.

To that end, we asked Revel System’s CEO Lisa Falzone to swing by and help us understand the current temperate of her industry. Revel, for the uninitiated, vends iPad-based point of sale (POS) solutions to various industries like retail, and grocery stores.

The company underscores the point that fintech is a big tent — Revel doesn’t merely develop POS solutions. It also provides companies with software to run screens in commercial kitchens, manage presence on services like Foursquare, and the like.

With a number of fintech shops firing up an IPO, will we see more of the same, or will consolidation reign in the space as cash-rich companies look to developer more full-stack solutions? Hit play, and let’s find out.

(Oh and there is a little surprise at the end. Enjoy.)

  1. “Fintech” is a horrible word. Shame on the technology industry.