Mayfair 101 Managing Director, James Mawhinney introduces savvy investors to the investment group's portfolio company Liven, represented by Co-Founder and Chief Executive William Wong.
Liven is a rewards-based payment network that is currently focused on the restaurant industry with near term plans to expand into areas like retail. "Even though from the restaurants' point of view it is more customer centric... we see it as a more data-driven approach, where every transaction that our users do in this network creates this very valuable data and insight, which we can then use to [further] increase revenues for these restaurants," explains Wong.
Mayfair 101 first agreed to invest up to $10 million in Liven around two and a half years ago. Mawhinney explains the compelling investment case, saying, "At its core it is actually really a payments related business, and obviously underpinning that is the data that comes off the back of those payments. So where the likes of Visa and Mastercard have entered the merchant space clipping under a percent on transactions, Liven's entered the space with a very compelling value proposition for restaurants and also consumers, which is delivering far greater value plus... exceptional margins."
There are plans in the works to take Liven international.