Payments & Fintech Acquisitions in Florida

Solutions by Text (SBT) has acquired Triple Play Pay (TPP) to expand its FinText payments and embedded commerce capabilities, combining SBT's compliance-first conversational commerce with TPP's payment orchestration and PayFac onboarding capabilities. The deal (terms undisclosed) adds ACH, card, and mobile wallet acceptance, faster merchant onboarding, fraud and transaction monitoring, and enhanced reporting to SBT's platform to accelerate embedded payments for consumer finance customers.

PayRange LLC has acquired KioSoft Technologies, a global provider of cashless payment and IoT solutions, to accelerate the digital transformation of unattended retail. KioSoft will operate under the PayRange brand, with KioSoft President Charles Lee joining as Vice Chairman and retaining a significant ownership stake; terms were not disclosed.

Fireblocks, the enterprise digital-asset infrastructure provider, has acquired Dynamic, a developer platform that powers embedded wallets and on-chain accounts. The deal brings Dynamic's ~30-person team and consumer-facing wallet, onboarding, and developer tools into Fireblocks to create a unified custody-to-consumer stack for fintechs, enterprises, and payment platforms.

Humphrey Holdings of America, LLC, led by David Humphrey, has completed the full acquisition of Bryte Payment Solutions from Advanced Merchant Services, LLC (owned by Jason Felts). The acquisition brings the Jacksonville-based merchant services provider under Humphrey Holdings to accelerate investment in technology, expand the TAKE CHARGE agent program, and broaden Bryte’s omni-channel payments and analytics capabilities.

Celero Commerce has acquired Precision Payments, an electronic payments technology provider headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. The deal expands Celero's merchant payments capabilities and sales footprint in multi-lane retail and is expected to push Celero's annual card processing volume across North America above $28 billion.

CSG (NASDAQ: CSGS) has acquired iCheckGateway.com, LLC (iCG Pay), a Fort Myers-based ACH and credit card payment processor, for an upfront purchase price of $17 million plus potential earn-outs. The deal adds recurring payments revenue (iCG Pay reported ~$9.5M in 2023 net revenue), ISV channel partnerships, and payments capabilities to CSG’s customer engagement and billing platform to accelerate its North American payments expansion and improve 2024 profitability.

Neon Bloom, Inc. (OTC PINK: NBCO) has agreed to acquire Advanced Executive Sales, LLC (AES), a payments and card-processing provider that services over 100 e-commerce sites. Under the deal Neon Bloom will acquire all AES membership interests, appoint AES Managing Member Greg Bauer to its board and convert AES to a Florida C‑Corp; AES reported roughly $23.2 million in gross revenue for 2023.

FIS has completed the acquisition of Dragonfly Financial Technologies, a digital business banking and cash management solutions provider, from One Equity Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed; Dragonfly — carved out from ACI Worldwide by OEP in 2022 — serves over 1.4 million businesses and a number of tier-one banks across the U.S. and Asia Pacific.

General Atlantic has made a strategic growth equity investment in Financial Information Technologies, LLC (Fintech), joining existing investor TA Associates. The capital will support Fintech's product innovation, expansion of its payments and data platform for the beverage alcohol industry, and pursuit of M&A initiatives.

Guidepost Growth Equity has made a significant minority growth investment in ClassWallet, a digital wallet purchasing and reimbursement platform serving state and K–12 education public funds. The capital and partnership will support ClassWallet’s go-to-market expansion, product roadmap, and hiring initiatives to scale its compliant public-funds disbursement technology across additional states and programs.

B2B payments firm SendFriend has acquired the assets of US-based RegTech provider DigiPli for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will let SendFriend embed DigiPli's onboarding-as-a-service AML and sanctions-screening technology into its payments-as-a-service platform to strengthen compliance controls and expand its cross-border payments offering.

Paramount Management Group has acquired the ATM portfolio operated by Amer-E-Com Digital Corporation (d/b/a First National ATM), adding more than 1,000 ATMs across 34 states and the District of Columbia. The First National ATM team will continue under Paramount; Tremont Capital Group advised the seller on the transaction.

Banc of California acquired the payments platform and technology assets of Global Payroll Gateway, Inc. and its subsidiary Deepstack Technologies for $24 million in cash and stock. The acquisition, which brings Deepstack's team (11 employees) and IP into Banc of California, expands the bank's payments capabilities and aims to grow fee-based, non-interest income.

Aurora Payments, a Tempe/Las Vegas-based payment technology company, has acquired One Payment, a Florida-based fintech payments provider that serves over 6,000 merchants and processes more than $1 billion in annual volume. The deal expands Aurora's East Coast distribution, merchant portfolio and processing scale to accelerate its go-to-market capabilities for small and medium-sized businesses.

Esker made a strategic equity investment in partner LSQ via a USD 5 million convertible promissory note to strengthen their partnership and accelerate development and commercial expansion of supply chain finance solutions. The investment expands Esker's Esker Pay fintech offerings and supports joint supply chain finance and AP financing initiatives between the two companies.

Medius has acquired OnPay Solutions, a Jacksonville-based invoice payments provider, to integrate payment processing into its source-to-pay platform and close the 'last mile' of accounts payable automation. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, adds OnPay's technology, a 360,000-vendor network and 35 employees, and will support Medius's US expansion with a new Jacksonville office.

New York-based private equity firm Stella Point Capital has made a growth investment in Autoagent, a Boca Raton–based provider of cloud tax payment and data solutions. The capital will be used to expand Autoagent’s payments revenue stream, increase penetration into taxing jurisdictions, grow its data footprint, and support regional expansion and future acquisitions while the existing management team remains in place.

Klarna has acquired Piggy, a browser-extension digital commerce technology that provides coupons and cashback to shoppers. The acquisition is intended to accelerate Klarna's browser-extension offering and integrate Piggy's coupon and savings capabilities into Klarna's payments and shopping experiences.

Celero Commerce acquired Florida-based Everest Payment Solutions, a national provider of payment processing services, expanding Celero's merchant footprint and capabilities. With the acquisition Celero will serve over 45,000 merchants and process more than $18 billion in annual card volume, while combining Everest's local, bundled technology solutions with Celero's platform and business management tools.

PROG Holdings, the fintech holding company behind Progressive Leasing and Vive Financial, has acquired Four Technologies (Four), a Miami/Aventura-based Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform. The acquisition adds BNPL capabilities to PROG's suite of payment solutions to expand retailer payment options and diversify its consumer fintech offerings; terms were not disclosed.

Greater Sum Ventures (GSV), an entrepreneurial family office and growth equity investor, made a majority investment in Orlando-based payments technology provider Fattmerchant to fund product innovation and accelerate growth. Fattmerchant will continue to be led by CEO Suneera Madhani and the founding team while leveraging GSV's capital and operational support to expand its Omni and Omni Connect offerings for ISVs and SMB merchants.

Visa Inc. signed a definitive agreement to acquire YellowPepper, a Miami-based fintech that provides API-based payment orchestration and real-time payment solutions across Latin America and the Caribbean. The deal is intended to accelerate Visa's "network of networks" strategy by integrating YellowPepper's multi-rail connectivity, identity and routing tools to speed time-to-market and lower integration costs for issuers, processors and governments.

Payroc, a Tinley Park-based merchant acquirer and payment processor, has acquired the assets and operations of Gateway Payments, LLC, an independent sales organization based in Destin, Florida. The deal (closed Feb. 28) brings Gateway Payments' sales personnel and merchant portfolio in Gulf Coast markets into Payroc's merchant acquiring platform to accelerate regional growth.

ZipLine, a mobile payment and rewards technology platform, has acquired SmartClixx, a Boca Raton-based gift card and stored-value payment software provider. The acquisition brings gift card issuance and stored-value processing capabilities into ZipLine’s merchant payments and loyalty offering to expand its payments and rewards product suite.

REPAY (Realtime Electronic Payments), an Atlanta-based payments technology and processing company, has acquired PayMaxx Pro, an electronic payments provider serving the automotive industry. The acquisition expands REPAY's footprint in automotive payments, broadens its software integration capabilities, and brings PayMaxx Pro leadership (including Megan Bussie and Jon Leedom) and customers onto REPAY's platform.