Vendon , the Global provider of IoT, Telemetry and Payment solutions for Vending & Coffee businesses based in Latvia, has been acquired by the Azkoyen Group from Spain, in what appears to be a nailed-on ‘win-win’, however you look at it. The newly created ‘whole’ seems suddenly greater than the sum of its intrinsic parts.
Vendon’s main sources of business have traditionally been in France, Germany, Benelux and the UK, with more than50,000 connected machines. Founded in 2011, Vendon has already accelerated from ‘start-up’ to ‘global player’, with connected machines in more than 80 countries. What’s more, in excess of 55% of its turnover comes from recurring payments thanks to robust contracts with its customers.
From the perspective of Azkoyen, Vendon’s attraction clearly lay in the company’s peerless track record in R&D. It’s no wonder that both the management team and the entire workforce of 37 people have been retained.
Kristians Vebers is Vendon’s CEO and he explains why he finds the acquisition so inspiring. ‘Azkoyen has been a respected name in the business for seventy years, they have unparalleled knowledge of the marketplace, and they have customer relationships that have matured over decades. Having that resource at our disposal in future will obviously be to our advantage.’
Kristians is eager to stress that the synergies with Coges, also part of the Azkoyen Group, are similarly promising. ‘Coges have been working with payment systems for forty years or so. In many regions, they have a very strong presence and in other regions, Vendon is in that position’ he says. ‘We complement each other: we each have our own telemetry device with its particular benefits; Vendon brings payments solutions software for both open and closed groups to the party, Coges are hardware experts. It makes sense.’
The pace with which Vendon is introducing its innovative solutions continues unabated, takeover notwithstanding. Take the new Remote Reboot Plug for example. How many times have engineers gone out of their way to solve an issue that ultimately required them to do nothing more than turn a machine off, then turn it on again? This ingenious new plug means a machine can be re-booted remotely. It’s typical of Vendon: a practical problem addressed by an ingeniously ‘simple’ solution, beautifully executed.
The popular vBox telemetry device, which was developed for large scale deployment, is now being up-graded so that it can control fully automatic coffee machines as well as vending dispensers. Vendon vBox2 is a purpose-made hardware unit that collects data from machines and transmits it over the cellular network to a secure Vendon Cloud. All vBox2 user interactions are supported via a ‘function’ button and confirmed with sound signals, allowing effortless management of the Vendon Telemetry solution.
The company has recently added a cashless payment solution to its portfolio. Vendon Contactless Payment provides more convenient ways for customers to pay, embracing contactless, debit & credit cards, NFC mobile, smart device payments, and even closed-loop payment methods.
‘Prior to the takeover we were a relatively small team that was great at developing exciting products’, Kristians says. ‘Now, that small team has the substantial support of Azkoyen behind it, so there really is no limit to the potential of our future development. Azkoyen will support our strengths at Vendon, allowing us to concentrate on the things we are really good at.’
For more stories on Vendon, Azkoyen and Coges on Planet Vending, click HERE
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