Payments & Fintech Acquisitions in California

Telos Labs, a Berkeley-based digital product studio focused on AI and fintech, has acquired Flourish Fi, a behavioral loyalty and financial-engagement platform. The deal brings Flourish's behavioral data models and engagement platform into Telos' AI and fintech practice, with Flourish co-founder Pedro Moura joining Telos as an Operating Partner to continue supporting existing clients.

SmartMoving, a Dallas-based operations and profitability platform for moving companies, has acquired Remedy Payments, an embedded payments provider for the moving and storage industry. The acquisition brings Remedy’s payments infrastructure into SmartMoving’s core platform for deeper integration, improved cash flow and streamlined invoicing; Remedy’s CEO Alex Dimitracopoulos will join SmartMoving’s executive team.

Paystand, a blockchain-powered B2B payments network, has acquired Bitwage, a platform for stablecoin-enabled cross-border payouts. The acquisition embeds Bitwage’s payout engine into Paystand’s AR/AP and treasury stack to enable enterprise-grade stablecoin settlement, faster cross-border payouts, and automated on-chain reconciliation for global customers.

BankCard USA Merchant Services and Preferred Payments have merged and will operate jointly as Ecrypt Inc., combining BankCard USA's merchant portfolio and sales force with Preferred Payments' payment gateway and cloud EMV technology. The combined company, based in Agoura Hills, California, will offer end-to-end payment processing, subscription billing, advanced security (including AI-driven fraud protection and tokenization), and dedicated U.S.-based account management.

Informativ, a Capstreet-backed provider of fraud prevention, compliance, and credit technology for the automotive industry, has acquired Carmatic, a payments-as-a-service platform that delivers real-time, transaction-ready loan and lease payments. The deal brings Carmatic's VIN-level payment engine and decisioning capabilities into Informativ's suite to accelerate transactions, reduce risk, and expand payment/product capabilities for dealers and channel partners.

Fiserv, Inc. has acquired CardFree, a mobile ordering, payments, and loyalty platform, to integrate its capabilities into the Clover and Commerce Hub ecosystems. The acquisition enhances Clover's support for hospitality, restaurant and lodging merchants by adding drive-through, kiosk, sub-inventory, and third-party integration capabilities; financial terms were not disclosed.

Airwallex has acquired OpenPay, a San Francisco-based billing and subscription-management SaaS, to integrate billing, payment orchestration, and revenue analytics into Airwallex's global financial platform. The acquisition adds usage-based and multicurrency billing capabilities to Airwallex's product suite; financial terms were not disclosed.

Fortis, the embedded payments technology provider headquartered in Plano, Texas, has acquired Serve First Solutions, a B2B payment processor based in Costa Mesa, California. The deal is intended to combine Serve First's B2B payment expertise and service model with Fortis' proprietary technology to expand capabilities and accelerate penetration into verticals such as wholesale, distribution, and manufacturing.

Gamefound, a Poland-based tabletop crowdfunding platform, has acquired Indiegogo, the long-established San Francisco crowdfunding site with a 38 million-member community. The deal will integrate Gamefound's pledge-management technology and payments tools across Indiegogo's categories to expand capabilities, improve creator terms, and increase reach for creators and backers worldwide.

The Monad Foundation has acquired Portal Labs, the team behind the Portal stablecoin wallet and payments infrastructure, bringing a full‑stack stablecoin payments solution onto the high‑throughput Monad blockchain. Portal will operate as a wholly‑owned subsidiary while its CEO Raj Parekh joins Monad as Head of Payments and Stablecoins to accelerate stablecoin adoption across issuers, payment platforms, and fintechs.

Coinbase has acquired Liquifi, a token management platform that provides token cap table management, vesting and compliance tooling for early-stage onchain teams. The acquisition brings Liquifi's token issuance and compliance capabilities into Coinbase's product suite (including Coinbase Prime) to support builders earlier in their lifecycle and provide a more integrated onchain issuance workflow.

Exectras has acquired TRNXN, a payments company known for its Cash Discount technology, in a deal facilitated by M&A advisor 733Park. The acquisition will expand Exectras' payment services and merchant solutions for small and midsize businesses while bringing TRNXN's payment-processing capabilities into Exectras' membership and employee-benefit platform.

NFT marketplace Magic Eden has acquired Slingshot, a mobile-first crypto trading platform that supports cross-chain trading. Terms were not disclosed; Slingshot received a mix of equity and Magic Eden's token $ME, and will operate independently with CEO Clinton Bembry reporting into Magic Eden's product leadership as the company expands beyond NFTs into broader crypto trading services.

Checkbook has acquired sureti, a digital payments platform that streamlines distribution of insurance claim proceeds and enables vetted restoration contractors to receive funds ahead of work completion. The acquisition integrates sureti's vendor network and fund-control mechanisms into Checkbook's digital endorsement technology to accelerate claim payments, reduce administrative costs, and improve cash flow for contractors and carriers.

Phoenix-based MyCarrier has acquired Curant, a Los Angeles-based digital payments platform serving 3PLs and freight forwarders. The deal brings Curant's payments capability and founder Joe Magee into MyCarrier to integrate automated freight payments into MyCarrier's transportation management platform, accelerating its payments and billing functionality for shippers and carriers.

Thunes, a Singapore-headquartered global cross-border payments company, signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia LLC, an all-in-one payments platform licensed across 48 U.S. states. The acquisition aims to accelerate Thunes' growth in the United States and expand its capabilities and customer offerings in the online gaming, virtual worlds and creator-economy markets; Tilia will remain based in San Francisco and enter an exclusive five-year partnership with Linden Lab post-closing.

Quisitive Technology Solutions has entered into an agreement to sell its BankCard USA Merchant Services business to BUSA Acquisition Co., a Nevada entity backed by a consortium of BankCard employees and third‑party investors, for US$40.0 million plus other consideration and settlement of prior earnout obligations. The transaction is a divestiture intended to simplify Quisitive into a pure‑play Microsoft Cloud and AI provider, reduce debt and improve its pro forma adjusted EBITDA; the acquiror secured senior secured financing from WhiteHorse Capital to fund the deal.

Nordic Capital has joined Great Hill Partners as a strategic investor in One Inc, a U.S.-based digital payments platform focused on modernizing insurance payments. The growth equity investment (with significant continuing investment from One Inc's management) will fund product innovation and further scale the Company's payments network and customer expansion.

Handle.com, a construction payments and lien-management software provider, received a growth-stage investment from Suffolk Technologies, the venture arm of Suffolk Construction. The strategic funding will pair Handle's payment and credit platform with Suffolk Technologies' industry network to accelerate adoption across contractors and material suppliers in the built environment.

Electronic Merchant Systems (EMS), a Cleveland-based payment technology provider, has acquired Los Angeles-based PaymentCloud. The deal brings PaymentCloud's merchant-focused distribution and marketing capabilities into EMS's infrastructure to scale onboarding, processing and inside sales channels while integrating PaymentCloud leadership into EMS management.

Stax Payments has acquired Atlantic-Pacific Processing Systems (APPS) to integrate APPS’s processing capabilities into a unified, end-to-end payments platform branded as Stax Processing. APPS leadership (including CEO Abe Maghaguian and COO Sarah Gerald) and nearly 50 APPS team members will join Stax as the companies complete integration through 2024 to expand Stax’s processing, data reporting, and multi-channel capabilities.

Shift4 Payments purchased SpotOn’s sports and entertainment business unit for $100 million in cash, acquiring the unit’s customers, some employees and certain technology assets while SpotOn retains and licenses source code for restaurant use. The deal expands Shift4’s presence in the stadiums/venues vertical by adding marquee clients and technology to bundle POS, mobile ordering and payments for sports and entertainment venues.

Velo Payments, Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire YapStone, Inc., the leading payments platform for the short-term and vacation rental industry. The transaction combines YapStone’s payfac/MSB capabilities and VacationRentPayment product with Velo’s global disbursements and open-banking technology to expand capabilities and deliver lower-cost, cross-border payment experiences for marketplace and STVR customers.

InComm Payments has acquired Zenda, a Palo Alto–based developer of an AI-driven health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA) platform. The acquisition expands InComm's healthcare payments capabilities and brings Zenda's automated expense-tracking, smart debit card and tax-optimization features into InComm's InComm Healthcare business unit.

Upgrade, Inc. acquired Uplift, Inc. — a travel-focused Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider — for $100 million in cash and stock. The deal brings Uplift's travel financing capabilities (serving ~3.3 million customers and 300+ travel partners) into Upgrade to expand point-of-sale credit offerings for travel and adjacent consumer finance markets.

When I Work, a leading workforce management platform for shift-based businesses, has acquired fintech startup Lean Financial to integrate on-demand pay and other financial products for hourly and flex workers. The acquisition expands When I Work's capabilities to offer financial solutions (including instant pay and cash advances) aimed at improving retention and financial wellbeing for hourly workers.

JG Wentworth has acquired the digital consumer lending platform and related assets from San Francisco-based fintech Stilt Inc. The deal provides JG Wentworth with Stilt's lending and servicing technology, proprietary credit datasets and underwriting capabilities to accelerate its entry into consumer lending and begin originating loans in 1H 2023.

Fortis, a leader in embedded payments for software providers, has acquired Payment Logistics, a payment technology company based in La Jolla, California. The deal expands Fortis' embedded payments partnerships and technology stack, bringing Payment Logistics' team and integrations into Fortis to accelerate capabilities for retail, hospitality and software partners.

Circle has acquired Elements, a developer-first payments orchestration platform, to accelerate its crypto payments roadmap and make it easier for merchants to accept USDC and other crypto payments. The deal will let Circle scale payments offerings, integrate merchants' existing PSP relationships, and deliver payment APIs and SDKs to lower the barrier of entry for merchants and developers.

Plastiq Inc., a B2B payments platform for small and midsize businesses, has entered into a definitive merger agreement with special purpose acquisition company Colonnade Acquisition Corp. II to take Plastiq public. The combined company will operate as Plastiq with an implied enterprise value of approximately $480 million at closing and is expected to add about $320 million of cash to the balance sheet to support organic and inorganic growth.

LSQ, a provider of working capital finance and payments solutions, has acquired Qwil, a San Francisco-based fintech offering embedded early-payment and AP automation solutions for the contingent staffing market. The acquisition brings Qwil’s embedded finance platform and integrations together with LSQ’s funding, underwriting and payments scale to expand capabilities for staffing and professional services clients.

Nexa Equity has acquired a majority stake in Choice Inc., a San Francisco-based omnichannel payments platform. Concurrently, Choice acquired Pennsylvania-based Direct Payment Consultants to expand its merchant-facing capabilities, bringing the combined platform to more than $3 billion in annual payments volume across 7,000+ customers in the United States and Canada.

Blockdaemon has acquired Gem, a cryptocurrency API company that provides a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp and trade data aggregation services. The deal brings Gem's onramp, Connect API, KYC Passport and engineering team (including CEO Micah Winkelspecht) into Blockdaemon to accelerate product capabilities and immediately generate transaction-based revenue.

Western Alliance Bank has completed the acquisition of Digital Settlement Technologies, doing business as Digital Disbursements, a Los Angeles–area digital payments platform focused on class action settlements and other legal industry disbursements. The acquisition brings Digital Disbursements' payment-selection technology, fraud-detection tools and machine-learning risk infrastructure into Western Alliance's settlement services suite; Digital Disbursements will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary led by its existing team.

SAP SE agreed to acquire a controlling majority stake in Taulia, a San Francisco–based provider of working capital management and supply chain finance solutions. Taulia will operate as an independent company within the SAP Group with Cédric Bru remaining CEO, while strategic banking partners including J.P. Morgan will continue to participate on the platform; financial terms were not disclosed.

Fifth Third Bancorp has acquired Dividend Finance, a San Francisco–based fintech point-of-sale lender that provides financing for residential renewable energy and sustainability-focused home improvements. The deal — which involved Dividend's majority shareholder LL Funds — expands Fifth Third's digital lending capabilities and strengthens its renewable energy financing portfolio.

FundThrough has acquired the invoice factoring business of fintech BlueVine, bringing all BlueVine factoring employees into FundThrough and doubling FundThrough's U.S. client base. The deal accelerates FundThrough's U.S. expansion and embedded-finance strategy, positioning it as a larger AI-powered invoice funding platform in North America.

VeriCheck, a payments processor and subsidiary of Commercial Bank of California, acquired Applied Payment Systems, LLC (dba ACHWorks). Generational Equity advised the seller and the deal closed on December 31, 2021; the acquisition adds ACH processing technology and capabilities to VeriCheck's payments platform.

SumUp, the London-based payments provider, completed its acquisition of San Francisco-based Fivestars on October 28, 2021 for $317 million in cash and stock. The deal gives SumUp its first U.S. presence and integrates Fivestars' payments, loyalty and marketing automation platform while Fivestars' leadership, including CEO Victor Ho, remain in place.

Priority Technology Holdings (NASDAQ: PRTH) has completed the acquisition of Finxera Holdings, a pioneer in Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and payments infrastructure. The deal combines Priority's merchant acquiring and payments capabilities with Finxera's BaaS platform to create an expanded payments and virtual-banking offering; Finxera shareholders, including funds managed by Stone Point Capital and Finxera management, will retain meaningful equity positions in Priority.

Mastercard has acquired CipherTrace, a cryptocurrency intelligence company, to strengthen its digital assets security, fraud detection and compliance capabilities. The deal integrates CipherTrace’s blockchain analytics and intelligence with Mastercard’s AI, cyber and payments infrastructure to provide greater transparency and regulatory support for customers; terms were not disclosed.

Cantaloupe, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTLP) acquired the assets of Delicious Nutritious LLC, dba Yoke Payments, a Los Angeles–based micro-market payments and POS software provider. The acquisition integrates Yoke’s kiosk and mobile point-of-sale technology into Cantaloupe’s Seed Markets platform to extend self-checkout capabilities and expand micro‑market offerings.

Paysafe (NYSE:PSFE) has agreed to acquire SafetyPay in an all-cash transaction valued at USD 441 million, strengthening Paysafe’s eCash and open banking capabilities in Latin America. The deal brings SafetyPay’s team and network into Paysafe’s eCash and open banking division to accelerate regional expansion and cross-selling opportunities across Paysafe’s payments, wallet and gateway solutions.

Payroc WorldAccess, LLC acquired the debit payment routing intelligence and team from Beanstalk Payment Technologies, integrating Beanstalk’s cloud-based API and analytics into Payroc’s full-stack payment platform. The acquisition is intended to expand Payroc’s debit routing and cost-optimization capabilities for merchants, payfacs, and ISVs.

OneMain Financial has agreed to acquire Trim (Ask Benjamin Inc), a San Francisco-based financial wellness fintech that helps users negotiate bills, cancel subscriptions and automate savings. The purchase will strengthen OneMain's digital financial-wellness capabilities for its more than 2.2 million customers; terms were not disclosed.

Affirm Holdings, Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire Returnly for approximately $300 million in cash and equity. The acquisition brings Returnly's post-purchase payments and digital returns platform (serving >1,800 merchants and 8+ million shoppers) into Affirm to expand its merchant payment offerings and improve post-purchase experiences.

Envestnet has acquired Harvest Savings & Wealth Technologies, a fintech provider of automated, goals-based savings and wealth tools for banks, credit unions, trust companies and other financial institutions. The acquisition expands Envestnet’s embedded finance and financial wellness capabilities by integrating Harvest’s micro-savings, digital account opening, and signals technology into Envestnet’s unified platform; terms were not disclosed.

Quisitive Technology Solutions Inc. entered into an agreement to acquire BankCard USA Merchant Services, Inc. for US$100 million in cash plus the issuance of 50,000,000 common shares and a potential earn-out of up to US$20 million. BankCard USA, based in Westlake Village, California, processes over US$3.0 billion in payments annually, reported LTM revenue of US$29 million and LTM adjusted EBITDA of US$11 million, and will be integrated into Quisitive's LedgerPay payments platform; the deal is expected to close in Q2 2021 subject to approvals.

NMI, a global payments enablement technology company headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, has acquired USAePay, a Glendale, California-based payment gateway and POS-focused payments provider. The acquisition combines both companies' e-commerce, retail, mobile and unattended payment capabilities to strengthen NMI's omnichannel offering and expand coverage in key verticals such as retail and restaurants; terms were not disclosed.

GoDaddy Inc. agreed to acquire Poynt to integrate in-person point-of-sale, payments and commerce capabilities into its Websites + Marketing and WordPress commerce offerings. The deal pays $320 million cash at close plus up to $45 million in deferred cash and is expected to contribute more than $150 million of bookings in 2023; Poynt CEO Osama Bedier will join GoDaddy to lead a new Commerce Division.