LevelUp is looking to dramatically increase the number of merchants using its mobile payment system, and fast. The company has 5,000 of them at present, acquired over the past two years. But they recognize that the race for scale is on.

And so this morning, the company announced a key partnership with Heartland Payment Systems, the fifth largest payment processor in the U.S. I’ll get into what a company like Heartland does and what it wants with LevelUp in a second, but the summary on the LevelUp side is that the startup gets access to Heartland’s 800 person national sales team which, as of today, will begin selling its mobile payment system.

Heartland and LevelUp entered into a six-month pilot agreement, according to LevelUp founder Seth Priebatsch, during which 50 Heartland sales people were trained to sell LevelUp. The two companies put in place a revenue share for sales of LevelUp. The partnership worked well apparently, as LevelUp will now be sold by the full national sales team in addition to its traditional plastic business.

Heartland will also sell LevelUp’s newer white label systems at a discount, subsidized jointly by the two companies.

What Heartland Does

Heartland is an “acquirer” in industry parlance, meaning that it’s the middle man between the merchant who accepts your credit card, and the bank that issued you your credit card. The acquirer extends a line of credit to the merchant, and handles the exchange with your bank.

This also means that it’s one of a handful of big companies that vies for the business of merchants large and small across the country. “The acquirers are the guys who made credit cards profitable and ubiquitous,” Priebatsch told me. He’s hoping it can do the same for LevelUp.

Acquirers make a fraction of a percentage on every transaction, and Priebatsch says LevelUp is offering a higher percentage of LevelUp transactions.