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NZ-built for cafés, restaurants & takeaways

Vend was Kiwi.
SmakSpace is too.

Lightspeed bought Vend in 2021 and the magic left. SmakSpace is what comes next — independently built in Aotearoa, supported in NZ time, priced in NZD. Different product (hospitality, not retail), same local-first ethos.

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In one paragraph

Vend was a New Zealand-built retail POS founded in Auckland and acquired by Canada-based Lightspeed in 2021 (NZ$484m deal). It was rebranded to Lightspeed Retail X-Series and many NZ operators report a different post-acquisition experience. SmakSpace is a separate, independently-built NZ alternative for hospitality (cafés, restaurants, takeaways, bars, food trucks) — not a Vend continuation, but built with the same local-first ethos. Headquartered in NZ, supported in NZ time, NZD pricing.

Same ethos, different vertical

What "NZ-built" actually means.

NZ-built

SmakSpace is built in Aotearoa. Roadmap and support are run from New Zealand. No "we have a Pacific region team" language — it's just here.

NZ EFTPOS friendly

Designed to work alongside major NZ EFTPOS providers (Smartpay, Worldline, Verifone, Windcave). Bring your own terminal, no surcharge for using it. This is the NZ-specific moat that global SaaS doesn't prioritise.

NZD pricing

Pricing in New Zealand dollars, not USD with FX surprises every month. Annual billing for predictable cash flow.

Xero-ready accounting

Connect your Xero account and paid orders sync as invoices automatically. Prefer the bookkeeper workflow? GST-correct CSV exports of revenue, orders and customer metrics are there too. Per-payment-provider settlement columns are on our near-term roadmap.

Vend & SmakSpace

Real questions from former Vend users.

No. SmakSpace is a separate, independently-built NZ company. We have no corporate connection to Vend or to Lightspeed. We share the "NZ-built local-first" ethos that long-time Vend operators valued, which is why we frame ourselves as a spiritual replacement, not a corporate one.
Vend was founded in Auckland in 2010 by Vaughan Rowsell as a cloud-based retail POS. It was acquired by Montreal-based Lightspeed in 2021 in a deal worth around NZ$484 million (Stuff, NZ Herald coverage). The product was rebranded as Lightspeed Retail X-Series. Vend founders and a portion of the team have moved on; the original product still exists under the Lightspeed brand but the customer experience changed materially according to many operator reviews.
Most of it. A Vend (now Lightspeed Retail X-Series) export does not import directly, but we load your products for you as menu items from our CSV template, or you can photograph the printed menu instead — the AI recognises the items and holds them as drafts until you approve them. On request we also load your customer list for you during onboarding, and seed loyalty points for your regulars. Sales history does not come across, so export it from Vend and keep it for your accounting records. All of the migration work is part of our free support. Note that SmakSpace is hospitality-focused (cafés, restaurants, takeaways, bars); if you're running a pure retail business without a kitchen, we may not be the right fit and we'll tell you so during the audit.
Same ethos, different vertical. Vend was retail; SmakSpace is hospitality. The shared values are: NZ-built, customer support in your timezone, pricing transparency, and integration with the tools NZ businesses actually use (Xero, NZ EFTPOS, NZ payroll). We can't recreate Vend's retail product, but we can carry the local-first ethos into the café and restaurant world.
Confirm during onboarding. SmakSpace handles the hospitality side well; for the retail side you may need to keep a separate POS or wait for our retail roadmap. We'll tell you honestly during the audit whether SmakSpace alone covers your operation or whether you need a hybrid.
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