Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Gaurav Singal with Cantaloupe. Welcome.

Gaurav Singal: Thank you so much for having me here.

Lee Kantor: For folks who aren’t familiar. Can you tell us a little bit about Cantaloupe?

Gaurav Singal: For sure. So we are the biggest unattended retail software company. So for folks, especially in North America, if you are going to a location and trying to buy something from a vending machine using your credit card, you’re going to a gas station and buying it in vacuum, going to Dave and Buster trying to play a clogging machine massage chair. You’re paying by credit card, a gas station, any of these locations, wherever there is not an attendant and you’re paying by credit card. It is actually going through our point of sale through our payment systems. And I have over 1.2 million IoT locations in North America that is providing that experience to end consumers to buy a product or a service.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the genesis of the idea? How did this business get launched?

Gaurav Singal: So essentially how it launched was I think some, you know, I think somebody’s family or their kids, they said, hey, dad, we want to make some money. Can we put like maybe a vending machine in our school so I can actually manage it while I’m at school and make some money? And that’s how the vending machine business started. And then when the kids did not have the money and they wanted their, you know, maybe a credit card to use or with Covid, we saw a huge leap and leapfrogging into people using credit cards on these vending machine and unattended locations. That’s where we saw a huge uptake in using credit cards at these locations.

Lee Kantor: So was cantaloupe going store to store and and converting all of these locations into customers.

Gaurav Singal: So what we did is, you know, we partnered with OEM partners, which are essentially the vending machine makers like cranes and Dixie, narco and other machine types. So they by default put our credit card into their machines. So that way, you know, they’re retrofitted and it is available for any of their operators to use. But we also did like, you know, social media campaigns. We reached out to people like, you know, our salespeople will contact the phone numbers on the vending machines and kind of do a cross-sell or upsell opportunity for them to be able to buy these credit card readers.

Lee Kantor: But the brand is kind of hidden from the.

Gaurav Singal: Yes. So that’s the beauty of technology, is when you don’t notice it and it happens in the background, or you’re getting an amazing experience and, you know, and the beauty of technology is, is when it doesn’t work, then you really see the impact, right? Everybody, you know, it sucks all the oxygen out of the room. So my real the beauty of my job or the beauty that I’m doing my job really well is when nobody notices that cantaloupe is actually in the ecosystem.

Lee Kantor: But it’s a double edged sword, though, right? Because you want to be known by your customers that, hey, cantaloupe is the solution that we should choose.

Gaurav Singal: Yeah, yeah. So in unattended retail, we are a big brand. So we are the biggest brand in North America that do unattended retail. So anywhere any of the, you know, merchants, they want to do a micropayments. They want to accept any payments below $25, they will naturally come to cantaloupe because we have made a name in making that payment possible at a very good acceptance rate. So cantaloupe is a big brand in the industry now. So while an end consumer may not know, but all the people who are running these businesses, you know, either they know us or they know it from word of mouth from their friends who are already in the business.

Lee Kantor: So what brings you to Fintech South? Why is it important for you and your team to be here?

Gaurav Singal: Yeah, as I said, you know, Atlanta is the transaction valley, not a Silicon Valley, but a transaction valley. So obviously, you know, coming to fintech South, it has given me an opportunity to look at various sponsors, various collaborators, various partnerships. I have met, you know, a lot of people who are also looking for jobs as well. So and access to talent as well. So it’s kind of a mix of all this, which keeps me, you know, excited to come back every year at Fintech South.

Lee Kantor: So, um, looking ahead, what do you see as trends or technology that you should be paying attention to or the consumer should be paying attention to?

Gaurav Singal: Yeah. Awesome. So basically, you know, as you see, right today we are seeing a healthy collision between attended retail and unattended retail. So anywhere if you’re going to a Costco or a Walmart, you see, you know, more and more unattended locations where the shift of checkout process is now more on the end consumer versus a Costco worker or a Walmart worker. So we are seeing a trend that unattended payments and unattended checkouts are going to grow and grow, right? Because of the shortage of labor, rising wages. Right. And the merchants want to give you the better cost of acceptance without increasing that burden for people who are actually just doing checkout. So what we are pivoting on is we are leveraging AI in our smart pending. So we are actually we have solutions today which have AI camera, you know, camera vision and AI vision that is built on smart vending. So you can actually go to those smart vending locations, use your credit card to open that, pick up any bag or bag of chips or a Coke or a beer and just walk out. And automatically, those AI vision camera will detect what you took and will automatically charge you.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a customer adoption issues with that kind of technology? Because I saw that some large brands tried that and didn’t work as well as maybe they anticipated.

Gaurav Singal: So as with any technology right there is always going to be adoption gap, right? A lot of times I see people overestimate things in the short run and underestimate in the long run. There are some concerns, legit concerns from consumers, but what we are doing is we are actually kind of providing that feedback to the customer that hey, there is. There are cameras that are in use. They’re only used to detect the product. We are not recording them. And that has helped us generate the trust in the customer that hey, by the way, this is really operating in a private way. Secondly, you know, what we are also doing is, you know, given, you know, we are using AI sensors as well as, you know, AI based cameras. We have we can 100% detect that this is the product that you have taken. So that has also increased trust in the transaction that customers know that your technology or our control technology will charge them for the right product at the right time.

Lee Kantor: So now, um, are you seeing kind of other countries leading more in this area, especially like when it comes to vending? Is there opportunities for America to really kind of get more out of vending than other countries maybe have already embraced?

Gaurav Singal: Yeah, no, for sure, I think I don’t know if you have been to Japan, but if you go to Japan, right. I think everything is available in a vending machine, right? With food, whether it’s a consumer product, whether it’s electronic, anything you can think of, it’s actually in a vending machine at different locations. So I still feel I think we are like not a traditional vending machine. But I think the more and more I’ve been thinking about it, I think the world is going to converge into smart vending, where you’re going to see all of these locations pop up, whether it’s in a retail store, airport, gym, school, college, wherever you are at. But, you know, with our technology will be automatically able to detect what you have taken. And there would not be a need for an attendant to be there. They will only be needed to restock, and all of that would be happening through technology and unattended location and self-service commerce.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I would think there’s a big opportunity because America has the space, but it may not have the employees to do the kind of work. And this kind of solves both of those problems?

Gaurav Singal: Absolutely. I think we are definitely getting these are definitely tailwinds for us. You know, with the as I said, with the rising, uh, you know, wages and, uh, you know, labor shortage, this is you know, as I said, this is a strong trend for unattended to grow and grow.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about cantaloupe and partner with you, uh, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Gaurav Singal: Yes. So the best way to connect with me is always on LinkedIn. So I’m the chief technology officer at cantaloupe. The fruit cantaloupe, because we couldn’t get the other fruit name, which was apple. Our website is WW cantaloupe.com.

Lee Kantor: Well thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Gaurav Singal: Thank you so much for having me here.