Unattended Retail Series - Ravi Venkatesan, CEO of Cantaloupe | Episode 196

My guest this week is a self-proclaimed “recovering consultant” with a love for technology and an eye for connectivity. Cantaloupe CEO Ravi Venkatesan joined Cantaloupe in December 2020 with a path for progress that’s already dominating their industry sector.

For those of you who may not know, Cantaloupe is the technology ally for any business that “doesn’t have roots in the ground,” according to Ravi. This includes unattended cafeterias, vending machines, parking lots, EV charging stations, laundromats, and self-service massage chairs, just to name a few. And one of the things that makes them such a main player in the industry is there IoT capacity. Not only do they provide the telemeter and card reader necessary to enable a self-service storefront, but they also have all devices connected to a proprietary cloud network, with a proprietary payments gateway and an enterprise SaaS solution that lets any customer successfully manage their inventory input and output. And, as if that wasn’t enough already, they just recently got into the self-service kiosk-based market with their recent acquisition of Yoke Payments.

Ravi and I have an interesting discussion about the self-service economy. Not only is it much more prevalent than we think it is, but it’s also expected to grow to be a $46 billion industry by 2027. According to Ravi, the three dominant drivers for this massive growth spurt include:  

·       Labor shortage 

·       Consumer preference 

·       And availability of technology

Tune in to hear Ravi talk about the projected growth spurt of an already prolific industry sector, the convergence of the physical and the digital worlds (coined phigital), and what it looks like to guide a company at the intersection of IoT, digital payments, enterprise SaaS, and self-service kiosk innovation.