Montreal-headquartered Lightspeed POS is acquiring U.S. company ShopKeep for US$440 million in cash and shares.

ShopKeep helps businesses accept any type of payment and provides automatic inventory tracking, employee management and real time sales reporting. Meanwhile, Lightspeed is the publicly-traded cloud-based, omnichannel commerce platform provider.

Per Bloomberg, Lightspeed will pay US$145.2 million in cash and issue 9.5 million subordinate voting shares. The agreement is expected to close by the end of the company’s quarter ending Dec. 31, 2020.

The move is undoubtedly a result of the global pandemic, and how it has changed the business landscape.

COVID-19 is forcing businesses to replace legacy point-of-sale systems to remain operational and adapt to consumer demand. The acquisition means Lightspeed and ShopKeep can offer retail and restaurant business owners in the US with more resources to pivot their operations. Lightspeed will offer its analytics, loyalty, eCommerce, and payments modules to ShopKeep’s customer base.

Lightspeed says it will now serve over 100,000 customer locations worldwide, generating approximately $33 billion USD in gross transaction volume. ShopKeep’s platform is used by more than 20,000 retailers and restaurant customer locations nationwide.

Lightspeed recently reported a loss of US$19.5 million or 20 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a loss of US$10.1 million or 12 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

However, revenue totalled US$45.5 million for the company’s second quarter, up from US$28 million in the same quarter a year ago.