Montréal-based Lightspeed Commerce beat revenue estimates in fiscal Q4 but fell short of earnings expectations as it finished the first year of a transformation plan meant to streamline its focus on European hospitality and North American retailers.
In a statement, co-founder and CEO Dax Dasilva called the year’s results a “resounding success,” adding that customer location growth and gross transaction volume among customers grew every quarter during the fiscal year.
Thursday’s earnings mark the first full year of a three-year plan that Lightspeed outlined a year ago, following a strategic review.
The retail and hospitality tech company posted $290.8 million USD ($400.4 million CAD) in revenue in its last quarter, which ended March 31, 2026. That’s a 15-percent rise compared to the same period last year. However, its adjusted income per share of $0.10 came in lower than analyst projections of $0.12, and investors reacted accordingly. Lightspeed shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) dropped by more than 10 percent when markets opened, but have since slightly recovered to around $11.50 CAD at the time of publication.
In line with other software stocks, Lightspeed’s share price has taken a hit this year. The stock is down more than 20 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange since January.
Lightspeed also posted a net loss of $28.6 million, or $0.20 per share, in its last full quarter. That’s much smaller than last year’s $575.9 million, which was mainly due to a significant goodwill writedown triggered by a weak share price. Lightspeed ended the quarter with $453.9 million in cash and cash equivalents.
Dasilva said in an interview with BetaKit that the net loss was due to accelerated depreciation of assets Lightspeed had acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic that now, in the age of AI, are less valuable. The impact of large asset depreciations is set to end this quarter, he added, but he expects to see some net loss number due to other non-cash depreciations in the future.
Founded in 2005, Lightspeed sells point-of-sale and commerce software and hardware to restaurants, retailers, and hospitality providers. When Dasilva returned as CEO in 2024, he vowed that in fiscal 2025 the company would become “a profitability story” and exceed $1 billion in annual revenue. Lightspeed has hit that mark and has since attempted to strike the right balance between growth and profitability to win back public-market investors as its share price has struggled to regain its 2021 high.
Lightspeed reached $1.23 billion in revenue in fiscal 2026, while posting a net loss of $144.4 million overall.
Thursday’s earnings mark the first full year of a three-year plan that Lightspeed outlined a year ago, following a strategic review. That plan includes a focus on two areas of growth: retail in North America and hospitality in Europe, which now drive three quarters of Lightspeed’s total revenue (and will drive 80 percent by the end of next fiscal year, according to Dasilva). In these areas, the company added roughly 3,200 customer locations in fiscal Q4 and grew revenue by 24 percent year over year.
For Dasilva, the highlight of this first transformation year was that Lightspeed is hitting its goal compound annual growth rate (CAGR) metrics it had set out for its three-year plan, particularly for new customer locations.
“That’s pretty exciting for the team,” he said in an interview with BetaKit. “It shows that the strategy has worked and we’ve seen real acceleration.”
The firm’s plan includes streamlining its portfolio and focusing on these two “growth engines.” Last month, Lightspeed sold a non-core business unit and US hospitality product line, Upserve, to private equity firm Skyview Equity for up to $81 million USD in cash—more than 80 percent less than what it paid for the company in 2020. The transaction will pay Lightspeed $44 million USD up front, with the remaining $37 million subject to earnout over 24 months, based on performance targets.
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The company posted $72.5 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the year, and is now forecasting adjusted EBITDA between $75 million and $95 million. The firm also raised guidance for next quarter to between $305 million and $315 million.
Dasilva said Lightspeed’s priorities going forward are growing customer locations in North American retail and European hospitality, expanding its average user revenue for software subscriptions, and improving profitability.
This quarter, Lightspeed added longtime technology executive Bhawna Singh as its CTO; Singh previously held the same role at software companies Okta and Glassdoor. “Bhawna is an industry leader in agentic AI in the Bay Area,” Dasilva said. “It’s an exciting phase for the company to double down and expand on what we’re already doing in AI.”
John Shapiro, who served as chief product and technology officer, is now chief product officer. Leslie Martin, a former partner at Boston Consulting Group, joined as chief strategy and transformation officer, and Gabriel Benevides officially began his role as chief revenue officer.
Lightspeed also shipped new product updates this quarter, including an integration with wholesale marketplace Faire, an AI-powered Optical Character Recognition tool to more easily scan products, and point-of-sales upgrades. According to Dasilva, the company is seeing adoption of its AI offerings grow: 20 percent of its restaurant customers have adopted its AI platform, and the number of customers using retail insights tripled year over year.
Lightspeed Capital, the company’s merchant cash advance program that allows businesses to access financing, grew revenue by 73 percent year over year. Dasilva said customers are using the program as an alternative to their banks, to front things like inventory runs and terrasse builds.
While Lightspeed saw subscription revenue grow by six percent this quarter, compared to last year, it continued to see negative margins for its hardware sales. CFO Asha Bakshani said on an earnings call that it’s part of a strategy to offer discounts and incentives on hardware to win new customers. However, she added Lightspeed was “not happy with the level of discounting” over the last few quarters, and said the company is already implementing measures to improve those margins.
Feature image courtesy Lightspeed.