Payments & Fintech Acquisitions in Arizona

Lettuce, an AI-powered financial platform for solopreneurs, raised $28 million in a funding round led by Zeev Ventures and acquired benefits-access startup Besolo. The acquisition adds healthcare benefits (health, dental, vision, life) capabilities to Lettuce’s platform as it expands its product suite for independent professionals.

Corsair, a specialist private equity firm focused on financial and business services, has acquired a majority stake in Aurora Payments, a full-service payment solutions provider. Corsair will support Aurora's growth initiatives — including product and technology enhancements and inorganic expansion — while Brian Goudie remains CEO and a shareholder.

Paya Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PAYA) announced the acquisition of Paragon Payment Solutions, a Tempe, Arizona-based integrated payments provider that processes approximately $1.5 billion in annual payment volume. The acquisition strengthens Paya’s ISV partner roster and expands its capabilities and reach in the non-profit and healthcare verticals; Paragon executives Roy Bricker and Brock Robertson will assist with integration and ISV sales efforts.

Platform Partners LLC, a Houston-based private holding company, completed an investment in E-xact Payments, a payments gateway and processing services provider founded in 1999. Payments executive Rahul Gupta invested alongside Platform and will serve as Chairman while Platform and the company hire senior payments leaders and invest in technology and people to expand E-xact’s service offering.

Lock Trust, Inc. acquired Phoenix-based video platform Advisor TLC to integrate One-Click Video marketing capabilities into its payments and banking technology. The acquisition is intended to add automated video marketing within Lock Trust’s payment engine to drive growth in the small-to-medium merchant market; Advisor TLC co-founder Andrew Spaulding joins the Lock Trust team.

Repay Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: RPAY) acquired APS Payments, a Mesa, Arizona-based B2B integrated payments provider, for $60 million (with $30 million paid at closing and up to $30 million in performance-based earnouts). The deal expands Repay's presence in the B2B payments vertical, adds ERP integrations and technology capabilities, and is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings.

Pivotal Payments has acquired substantially all of the assets of Phoenix-based Capital Processing Network (CPN), adding more than $2 billion in annual processing volume and assimilating CPN's staff. The transaction expands Pivotal's direct sales channels across key U.S. markets and enhances its payments technology and cross-selling capabilities.