FiveStars Raises $26 Million

FiveStars, a 3-year-old loyalty reward firm focused on small businesses, has raised $26 million. “Menlo Ventures led the Series B investment, joined by the company’s earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM and Rogers Communications,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

FiveStars has about 150 full-time and previously raised a $13.9 million Series A round, the story said.

Pravin Vazirani, managing director with Menlo Ventures, is quoted as saying that what is most attractive about the FiveStars approach is that it leverages the typical POS systems small merchants already have, which makes integration and deployment much easier, less expensive and far less disruptive.

Varirani contrasted this with many other services approach the small business customer, which is to throw iPads on the counter or to use “simple digital punch card apps,” the Journal said. FiveStar reportedly works with “hundreds of available point-of-sales systems that small businesses are already using to run their registers, manage inventory and more,” the story said.