Mergers & Acquisitions

Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion

Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Mergers & Acquisitions, VISA
  • Digital payments giant Visa has agreed to acquire fraud and financial crime prevention platform BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash.
  • The acquisition will add to Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and provide greater defense against newer threats including account takeover and money mule fraud.
  • BioCatch was founded in 2011. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

Visa has inked a definitive agreement to acquire behavioral and device intelligence innovator BioCatch. Visa will purchase the company from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. The move will add to Visa’s current array of cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and is expected to be especially helpful in managing threats such as account takeovers, scams, money mules, and application fraud.

Subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of all relevant regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of Visa’s fiscal Q2 of 2027.

“Real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions,” BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor said. “For more than a decade, we’ve demonstrated behavior’s unique ability to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. In the last couple of years, we’ve shown how real-time intelligence-sharing networks between our customers can amplify the power of our behavioral intelligence further still. Together with Visa, we’re even better positioned to advance our mission of making the world a safer place to transact and protect consumers from financial crime.”

BioCatch offers AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals such as keystrokes and mouse activity, touch gestures, and device handling. This enables BioCatch’s technology to detect fraud and distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent users in real time. BioCatch’s models provide continuous monitoring to assess user intent and identify signs of potential coercion or manipulation throughout the digital banking session. More than 350 financial institutions around the world leverage BioCatch’s technology to protect 760+ million users from fraud and financial crime.

Visa’s acquisition of BioCatch comes at a time when AI, biometrics, identity, cyber defense, and fraud prevention are converging. To this point, in addition to this week’s transaction, Visa has launched its Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness solution, an open-source, AI security tool to help customers spot and mitigate vulnerabilities at scale. Visa noted in a statement that, over the last five years, the company has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure to secure its payments ecosystem and drive fraud rates lower.

“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale,” Visa’s president of value-added services Andrew Torre said. “BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment. This acquisition is part of our strategy to help clients prevent cyber threats upstream, building trust into every transaction.”

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York, BioCatch made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. In the years since then, the company has grown into a major financial crime prevention platform analyzing 18 billion user sessions per month and protecting 1.7 billion devices. In 2025 alone, BioCatch assessed more than $17 trillion in transactions and prevented $4 billion in fraud.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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ANNA Money Acquires Business Data Group, UK Business Forums

ANNA Money Acquires Business Data Group, UK Business Forums
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, ANNA, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • ANNA Money has acquired Business Data Group (BDG) and UK Business Forums (UKBF) as part of its goal of building an AI-powered operating system for small business founders and owners.
  • BDG is a leading, UK-based independent company formation platform. UKBF is a 160,000-member, online community of small business owners, freelancers, and other professionals.
  • Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, ANNA made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin.

AI-powered, all-in-one business account ANNA Money has acquired Business Data Group (BDG) and UK Business Forums (UKBF). The move represents the latest effort by ANNA to build an AI-powered operating system to help founders start, manage, and scale their businesses. By acquiring BDG, ANNA will be able to leverage the firm’s formation agents to support startups from formation to the day-to-day tasks of successfully running a business. The acquisition of UKBF will allow ANNA to continue to invest in the UKBF community and bring its business management tools to more small business owners to help them run their businesses more efficiently.

“ANNA isn’t going to compete with formation agents,” the company noted on its LinkedIn page. “We’re here to help them win. ANNA’s success is tied to the success of the businesses we help get started. So instead of competing with the independent agents who rely on BDG’s eFiling platform, we’re investing in the technology, automation, and tools that strengthen their positions.”

BDG is an independent company formation platform based in the UK. The firm offers eFiling and the Partner Program used by thousands of formation agents and their clients every year. Formation agents are professional service providers that help founders and businesses register and incorporate new companies with the appropriate government entities. UKBF is a 160,000-member, online business community and discussion forum where small business owners, founders, freelancers, and other professionals share insights and concerns about running their businesses.

ANNA’s goal is to help small businesses take advantage of current agentic AI capabilities to raise invoices, follow up on overdue payments, calculate and file taxes, and more now, with the aim of expanding capabilities to help small business owners communicate better with their customers, manage suppliers, and conduct a growing volume of the day-to-day tasks involved in running a business “over time” in what the company called “ANNA 3.0.”

“Bringing BDG and UKBF into ANNA is an important step towards that future,” ANNA Money Co-founder and Co-CEO Eduard Panteleev said. “Company formation is where every business journey begins, and BDG’s network means we can now support many more entrepreneurs from day one, with technology that grows alongside them.”

ANNA made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin. At the conference, the UK-based company showed how its tax and VAT accounting solution manages self-assessment and VAT returns by automatically categorizing and reconciling expenses, and calculating VAT and tax in real time at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated accountant. ANNA completes and submits both tax and VAT returns to HMRC with the support of a certified accountant.

ANNA began 2026 with a fresh capital infusion of £10 million in growth debt from Flashpoint Ventures. The funding helped the firm accelerate the scaling of its Auto Accountant solution designed to help small businesses in the UK meet the new regulatory requirements of the country’s Making Tax Digital mandate. “This funding gives us the firepower to scale at exactly the right moment,” Panteleev said. “As Making Tax Digital for self-assessment comes into force for around 850,000 self-employed people and landlords next year, demand for smart, automated accounting is accelerating fast.”

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

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3 Reasons Why Stripe Will Acquire PayPal (and 3 Why It Won’t)

3 Reasons Why Stripe Will Acquire PayPal (and 3 Why It Won’t)
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: List series, Mergers & Acquisitions, PayPal

Stripe has teamed up with private equity firm Advent International to acquire PayPal. Stripe and Advent are offering $60.50 per share in a deal that would value the payments firm at more than $53 billion. The acquisition would give Stripe and Advent each a 50% stake in the company and the offer, which is currently under consideration by the PayPal board, is supported by $50 billion in committed bank financing.

The acquisition would be a major development in e-commerce and payments, creating an entity with approximately $3.7 trillion in annual processing volume. But the deal isn’t done yet. Here’s a look at three reasons why the Stripe acquisition will (or should) go through, followed by three reasons why it won’t (or shouldn’t).

Deal!

Solid Strategic and Financial Sense

It’s easy to see why Stripe might want to do the deal. The acquisition would provide access to more than 430 million consumer accounts, as well as popular consumer-facing solutions like Venmo and PayPal Wallet. This would represent a major addition to Stripe’s current, merchant-focused business model. For its part, PayPal would gain access to Stripe’s modern technology infrastructure and merchant relationships. Combined, the company would process approximately $3.7 trillion a year.

PayPal’s Poor Position

PayPal is in an interesting position. The company’s stock is far off its pandemic highs, and the business itself faces slowing growth and intensifying competition from both fintech and Big Tech. Additionally, the company just appointed a new CEO in March who will be under pressure to make things happen. While there is some concern that the current offering price is too low (more about that in the “No Deal” section), the offer of $60.50 provides a premium of 28% over the stock’s price, pre-announcement. For some shareholders, this might be attractive enough to want to see the deal go through.

Private Equity Piloting the Mission

One potentially underrated aspect of this proposed acquisition is the participation of private equity firm Advent International. Working with Stripe as a 50/50 partner, Advent will be well-positioned to help navigate regulatory challenges and complex financial transactions—including managing divestitures if required. It also means that, should it be necessary to raise the bid (more on that below), Advent will be there to potentially provide additional capital. It is true that a deal of this size is larger than anything Advent has been involved with in its 42-year history. Nevertheless, the firm’s expertise, experience—and the sizable commitment of billions in equity capital—are meaningful factors in favor of the deal.

No Deal!

Antitrust

The biggest danger to the deal is regulatory. Combined, Stripe and PayPal would be a dominant digital payments player with an estimated $3.7 trillion in annual processing volume. While the Trump administration is likely to be far more permissive with regard to big mergers than the Biden administration was, a move of this size would still draw exceptional amounts of scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, as well as from regulators in the European Union. There’s also the potential that regulators might require conditions on the deal that would make the acquisition less strategically valuable.

Culture Clash

I’m old enough to remember when PayPal was the scrappy, technology-first company that was helping drive the emerging industry of e-commerce. Today, however, PayPal is a huge legacy firm with upwards of 25,000 employees, significant technical debt, complex infrastructure, and a well-established corporate culture. Incorporating PayPal’s legacy systems and operational complexity could prove to be more of a burden than a boon for a company like Stripe that still sees itself largely as an agile, engineering-driven firm.

Valuation

One concern is that the current price on offer of $60.50 per share is too low. Analysts have given PayPal a “sum-of-the-parts” valuation of anywhere from $46 to $80 per share, which suggests that the price on the table is in the lower-to-middle range. Observers such as prominent investor Michael Burry (of The Big Short fame) have said that “the bid will have to rise” (note that Burry is an investor in PayPal). William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey doubted that PayPal’s new CEO would accept “what could be viewed as a low-ball offer.”

Another possibility is that other buyers appear. JPMorgan Chase is one potential acquirer that has been mentioned by some. It is also possible that Stripe determines that it would rather try to purchase specific assets from PayPal (such as Braintree or Venmo) instead of acquiring the entire firm.

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

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CSI Acquires Qolo for Undisclosed Amount

CSI Acquires Qolo for Undisclosed Amount
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Mergers & Acquisitions, Qolo

Fintech solutions provider CSI has acquired payments infrastructure and treasury solutions provider Qolo for an undisclosed amount.

CSI anticipates that the acquisition will strengthen its commercial banking solutions by offering its community financial institution clients more flexible deposit structures and expanded commercial card programs. Adding Qolo’s existing clients to its own roster will also extend CSI’s geographical reach.

More specifically, CSI will use Qolo’s technology to serve as the orchestration layer across payments, accounts, and workflows. The Kentucky-based company will integrate with CSI’s core banking platform, digital banking solution, and broader API capabilities to bring community financial institutions prepackaged, pre-integrated commercial banking solutions, including:

  • A real-time account ledger that gives banks and businesses instant visibility into balances, transactions, and authorizations.
  • Multi-rail payment orchestration that offers a unified payment engine to orchestrate domestic and international money movement across multiple payment rails and business workflows.
  • Enhanced card capabilities that expand integrated issuing and processing across debit, prepaid, virtual, and secured corporate credit card programs.

Qolo, which demoed at FinovateFall 2022, was founded in 2018 with the aim of simplifying payments through a unified infrastructure layer. Its platform combines an embedded ledger, card issuing, money movement, real-time reconciliation, and cross-rail connectivity into a single API. Rather than requiring banks to replace legacy cores, Qolo overlays its technology on top of existing systems, enabling institutions to deploy new payment capabilities in months, not years.

CSI said that the combined company will remain focused on serving community financial institutions with new ways to attract, retain, and grow customer relationships by offering modern commercial banking capabilities typically found at large banks. Keeping up with current, constantly changing technology can help small community banks compete more effectively with banks that have large R&D budgets.

“Community financial institutions are built on trusted relationships, local expertise, and deep knowledge of their markets,” said CSI President and CEO Nancy Langer. “But businesses in their communities also need sophisticated banking capabilities that simplify and fit more naturally into their day-to-day financial operations. With Qolo, CSI is helping community banks bring those capabilities to market in ways that help them grow commercial relationships and become more central to how businesses operate. At the same time, it expands our ability to support fintechs and B2B payments providers as demand grows for financial services embedded directly into everyday business workflows.”

For community banks, the acquisition is less about adding another payments tool and more about simplifying how commercial banking services are delivered. As businesses increasingly expect real-time payments and integrated treasury capabilities, banks are looking for unified platforms that reduce technology complexity while enabling them to embed financial services more naturally into their customers’ day-to-day operations.

“The line between traditional banking and embedded finance is becoming increasingly blurred,” said Qolo Co-founder and CEO Patricia Montesi. “Whether you’re a community bank modernizing your commercial offering or a fintech building embedded finance products, you’re often running into the same challenges: fragmented vendors, disconnected payment rails, and manual workarounds that limit growth. By joining CSI, we can invest more deeply in the infrastructure that powers modern financial experiences and help our customers become a more seamless part of how businesses manage and move money every day.”

In an interview at FinovateFall last year, I sat down with Montesi to discuss how the company helps modernize payments infrastructure. “We set out to build an entire, comprehensive payments stack that includes ledger, card, payments, virtual account management—everything all available through a single API served up to you so that you can then focus on your customers,” said Montesi.

Rather than replacing legacy cores outright, banks are increasingly layering modern payments, ledger, and treasury capabilities on top of existing infrastructure. Qolo built its platform around that philosophy, making it a natural fit for CSI’s strategy of helping community financial institutions modernize without undertaking large-scale core replacements.

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Temenos Acquires Swiss Wealth Management Orchestration Platform additiv

Temenos Acquires Swiss Wealth Management Orchestration Platform additiv
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: additiv, Mergers & Acquisitions, Temenos
  • Banking technology company Temenos announced its acquisition of Swiss fintech additiv in a half-cash, half-equity transaction.
  • The acquisition will bolster Temenos’ wealth management franchise with additiv’s out-of-the-box orchestration and mass affluent capabilities.
  • Both Temenos and additiv made their Finovate debuts at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

Banking technology firm Temenos has agreed to acquire Swiss fintech additiv. The 50/50 cash and equity deal is expected to be completed early in Q3 of 2026.

Additiv offers a specialist platform to orchestrate financial services. The company’s technology integrates process steps and data into a single orchestration layer for wealth and other financial workflows. With 30 clients in wealth management, banking, and insurance, additiv’s technology enables banks and wealth managers to rapidly design and launch wealth propositions that boost advisor productivity, orchestrate investment propositions, and provide consistent client experiences at scale.

With an extensive global client base in the wealth space, Temenos will benefit from additiv’s native mass-affluent capabilities and AI-enabled orchestration layer. The company’s fast, low-risk implementation model offers deployments in as little as 3-6 months compared to the industry standard of 12 months. With a high Net Promoter Score (NPS) above 90, Net Revenue Retention (NRR) of 138%, and double-digit growth over the past three years, additiv will enable Temenos to expand its client footprint within investment services in both developed and emerging markets, as well as provide Temenos’ wealth clients with future-ready, front office workflows.

“This acquisition strengthens our wealth proposition at a time when we see strong, growing demand for our products across tiers and geographies in the wealth segment, with financial institutions increasingly focused on launching scalable hybrid wealth models,” additiv founder Michael Stemmie said. “additiv’s orchestration capabilities complement our market-leading platform and support our strategy to help clients deliver personalized, regulatory compliant wealth services efficiently and at scale. Together, additiv’s AI-powered orchestration capabilities and Temenos’ existing front-end solutions create strong differentiation at the banking experience layer.”

Temenos offers a core banking suite and modular composable solutions to help banks and other financial institutions modernize their operations. Deployable on-premises, via the cloud, or as a SaaS solution, Temenos’ technology empowers financial institutions of all sizes to deliver innovative, AI-enhanced experiences to their customers. Founded in 1993 and based in Geneva, Switzerland, Temenos today serves more than 950 core banking and 600 digital banking clients. Thibault de Tersant is Temenos Chairman. Takis Spiliopoulos is Chief Executive Officer (and interim Chief Financial Officer).

Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland and founded in 1998, additiv offers an API-first, cloud-based financial services orchestration platform that enables financial institutions and brands to launch, automate, and scale financial services from a singular solution. Empowering companies in wealth management, banking, credit, and insurance, additiv’s technology allows firms to expand their own offerings and introduce third-party products and services to their customers without having to replace core systems. A Finovate alum since 2013, additiv most recently demoed its technology at FinovateAsia 2017 in Hong Kong.

Earlier this year, additiv launched a new dedicated solution to help Germans navigate planned reforms to the country’s pension scheme. The reform calls for a new state-subsidized retirement investment account (Altersvorsorgedepot) that is offered digitally as a simplified, standardized solution, Standarddepot. Millions of legacy pensions (so-called “Riester” contracts) will be migrated to the new pension product, creating new urgency for institutions that seek to attract or simply retain these customers.

“This reform marks a genuine paradigm shift for German private pensions,” additiv CEO Nils Frowein said. “For the first time, capital market-based products are sitting at the heart of state-subsidized retirement savings. Institutions that are now establishing scalable digital infrastructure will secure long-term customer relationships—and with millions of Riester contracts up for migration, the window to act is open.”

Photo by Henrique Ferreira on Unsplash

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Adyen to Acquire Loyalty Platform Talon.One

Adyen to Acquire Loyalty Platform Talon.One
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Adyen is acquiring Talon.One for $879 million to add enterprise loyalty, promotions, and incentive infrastructure used by 300+ brands.
  • Adding Talon.One’s loyalty infrastructure moves Adyen beyond payments into real-time decisioning to enable merchants to connect identity, pricing, and promotions and act during the transaction.
  • The new infrastructure can dynamically deliver offers during AI-driven shopping experiences to help shape purchases.

Payments platform Adyen is acquiring loyalty solutions company Talon.One in a deal valued at $879 million (€750 million). The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026.

Germany-based Talon.One serves as the loyalty infrastructure for 300 enterprises, including large brands such as Nordstrom and H&M. Founded in 2015, the company offers tools for enterprise loyalty management, personalized promotions, and incentive optimization. Earlier this year, Talon.One released Unified Incentives Protocol (UIP), a new set of standards that shows available promotions and loyalty incentive offers within AI agent-based shopping experiences.

“Joining Adyen allows us to embed real-time decisioning at the core of every transaction,” said Talon.One Co-founders Christoph Gerber and Sebastian Haas. “Together, we enable merchants to connect customer identity with pricing and promotions in real time, in-store and online, driving better outcomes for our customers.”

Adyen anticipates that bringing in Talon.One will help connect online and in-store shopper interactions, enabling merchants to act on the insights in real-time. Combining Adyen’s payments infrastructure and transaction data with Talon.One’s real-time decisioning capabilities will allow merchants to establish a consistent customer identity across channels. Merchants can use this information to dynamically adjust promotions and pricing based on aspects of the customer identity.

“Our merchants ask us every day how they can better connect their online and in-store customer data and act on that in real time,” said Adyen Co-CEO Ingo Uytdehaage. “Many have tried to build a solution themselves but struggle to turn insights into action. With Talon.One, a merchant can recognize a shopper and apply a relevant offer instantly, before the payment is completed, ultimately driving higher revenue.”

Adyen considers the acquisition a “natural next step” in its investment in unified commerce and data products. Talon.One will enable it to link customer identity directly to SKU-level promotions and incentives within the flow of payments to improve conversion, fraud, and customer lifetime value.

Ultimately, the deal elevates Adyen beyond payment rails into a real-time decisioning layer within the transaction itself. By combining payments data with loyalty and promotion logic, Adyen is acting on the fact that transaction data is only valuable if it can be operationalized at the moment the purchase decision is still being made.

As the move toward agentic commerce accelerates, acting in the moment of the purchase becomes even more critical. AI-driven shopping experiences will increasingly surface and execute offers on behalf of consumers, making infrastructure that can dynamically deliver pricing, incentives, and identity-aware promotions a competitive differentiator.

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eToro Acquires Crypto Wallet Zengo

eToro Acquires Crypto Wallet Zengo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, eToro, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • eToro has acquired self-custodial wallet provider Zengo to deepen its digital asset capabilities and expand into on-chain finance.
  • The deal brings keyless wallet infrastructure in-house, positioning eToro to move beyond trading into custody, authentication, and transaction control.
  • As crypto evolves into infrastructure, owning the wallet layer could determine who controls the customer relationship.

Social trading and investment network eToro announced it has acquired self-custodial crypto wallet provider Zengo for an undisclosed amount. eToro plans to leverage the acquisition to deepen its digital asset capabilities and bridge traditional finance with on-chain infrastructure.

Zengo was founded in 2018 and offers a crypto wallet with buy, sell, and swap capabilities to both individual and commercial users. The Israel-based company positions itself as a secure crypto wallet, offering Bitcoin vaults, theft protection, a Web3 firewall, and enterprise-grade compliance and controls for commercial users. Notably, Zengo is a pioneer in multi-party computation cryptography and is known for its keyless wallet architecture.

“We believe the future of finance will be increasingly digital, decentralized, and user-controlled, with self-custody playing an important role in that evolution,” said eToro Co-founder and CEO Yoni Assia. “Zengo has built an innovative and secure wallet experience, and this acquisition will enable us to accelerate its growth while continuing to provide users with choice in how they access digital assets.”

eToro will combine its multi-asset platform with Zengo’s non-custodial wallet technology to expand on its own digital asset capabilities while growing Zengo’s platform. “From day one, Zengo has focused on making self-custody simple and secure for everyday users,” said Zengo Co-founder and CEO Ouriel Ohayon. “Joining eToro allows us to accelerate that mission at a global scale. Together, we can expand access to self-custody and on-chain finance while connecting it to a broader investing ecosystem that bridges traditional and on-chain finance.”

Founded in 2007, eToro launched Bitcoin trading capabilities in 2013, but didn’t launch a dedicated crypto trading platform in the US until 2019. Today’s acquisition will help eToro expand into tokenized assets and emerging decentralized trading models such as prediction markets and perpetuals.

As the banking world increasingly normalizes decentralized finance, it may no longer be enough for fintechs and investment firms to simply offer traditional finance investing tools, especially as crypto evolves from an asset class into infrastructure.

By acquiring Zengo, eToro is positioning itself to participate more directly in on-chain activity, rather than simply offering access to facilitate trades. The deal is another example of fintechs pushing deeper into infrastructure. Self-custody wallets are emerging as the interface layer for on-chain finance. By bringing that capability in-house, eToro is positioning itself to control digital assets, storage, authentication, and transactions.

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Acumatica Acquires CoreChain Technologies to Offer Embedded Supply Chain Financing

Acumatica Acquires CoreChain Technologies to Offer Embedded Supply Chain Financing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, CoreChain Technologies, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Embedded payments innovator CoreChain Technologies has agreed to be acquired by business management solution provider Acumatica. Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
  • The acquisition will enable Acumatica to offer embedded supply chain financing to its customers directly from its platform instead of relying on outside partners.
  • CoreChain Technologies made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024. The company is headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut.

Here’s Finovate alum acquisition news from earlier this year that slipped beneath our radar. CoreChain Technologies, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024, has agreed to be acquired by business management solution provider Acumatica. The announcement was made in January and builds on a relationship between the two companies that extends back to 2023, when CoreChain introduced a direct, integrated solution for Acumatica users with the launch of CoreChain Pay.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“I am tremendously excited to announce that Acumatica has acquired CoreChain Technologies,” CoreChain Technologies CEO Chris Aguas wrote on his LinkedIn page earlier this year. “CoreChain has focused on modernizing B2B payments for the past 7+ years, and embedding AP payments capabilities directly into ERP workflows has been a key focus since the very beginning of our journey.”

Since inception, CoreChain Technologies has processed more than $1 billion in B2B payments. CoreChain’s network of networks streamlines the financial supply chain by offering simple and secure digital B2B payments between buyers and suppliers—including digital payment options such as virtual cards and ACH. The acquisition will enable Acumatica to offer embedded supply chain financing directly while continuing to provide customer choice via an open marketplace.

The acquisition further transforms Acumatica’s business software into an actual fintech platform. Offering CoreChain’s blockchain-based payment system as a core part of its solution will enable Acumatica to leverage embedded finance to offer key financial tools such as supply chain finance directly instead of relying on third parties.

“We’re living in an incredibly exciting age of AI, with endless possibilities and impact that organizations are experiencing today,” Acumatica CEO John Case said. “We see it with customers who are combining new AI capabilities with human ingenuity to enhance performance and empower people to do their best work.”

Based in Bellevue, Washington, Acumatica offers a comprehensive business management solution designed to assist small and mid-market companies with connected, collaborative work environments. The company’s flagship offering, Acumatica Cloud ERP, was recently updated to include expanded AI capabilities, enhanced reporting tools, and new collaboration features. The enhancements are designed to better connect field teams with their back offices and to introduce early access to Acumatica’s AI Assistant, which facilitates a more intuitive, conversational way to access insights from their data.

Founded in 2019, CoreChain Technologies made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024. At the conference, the New Haven, Connecticut-based company demonstrated its CoreChain Pay solution. Billed as “Venmo for Business,” CoreChain Pay enables businesses to seamlessly and securely pay vendors digitally directly from their accounting systems. The technology makes accounts payable easier and allows companies to consolidate their vendor payments in a single solution, avoiding back office expenses, payment fees, and fraud risk.

Interested in learning more about exciting new fintechs like CoreChain Technologies? Join us next month in San Diego for FinovateSpring 2026, May 5-7, featuring more than 40 demoing companies making their Finovate debuts!

Photo by Krishnan Srinivasan on Unsplash

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Synctera Acquires Compliance Fintech Cable

Synctera Acquires Compliance Fintech Cable
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cable, Mergers & Acquisitions, Synctera
  • Synctera has acquired Cable to add real-time compliance monitoring and automated control testing to its BaaS platform.
  • Cable enables continuous, end-to-end oversight of fintech programs, replacing traditional point-in-time compliance checks.
  • Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.

In the BaaS world, compliance is quickly moving from a box-checking exercise to a continuous, provable requirement. That’s why embedded finance and BaaS fintech Synctera has acquired financial risk control platform Cable.

From Finovate’s perspective, this is a fun announcement to see, as both companies have demoed at Finovate in the past. Cable showcased its Automated Assurance product at FinovateFall 2022. Two years later, Synctera demoed its platform at FinovateFall 2024.

UK-based Cable was founded in 2020 to offer a financial risk control platform with automated testing and real-time alerts that help clients manage, track, and have full oversight of the controls. Cable works in conjunction with a firm’s existing compliance infrastructure to test whether controls, such as KYC, transaction monitoring rules, AML, and other workflows are functioning as designed.

“Synctera has always focused on helping banks and fintechs build and scale responsibly,” said Synctera Co-founder and CEO Peter Hazlehurst. “But execution alone isn’t enough. Banks need visibility into how those systems are performing in real time. Cable provides that missing observability layer, giving our partners confidence that controls are working as intended across their entire fintech ecosystem. Most solutions in this space are theater. Cable isn’t.”

While Cable initially launched to help firms manage financial crime, Cable has since doubled down on helping partner banks, including Axiom Bank, Quaint Oak Bank, and Griffin, manage their fintech programs. Instead of taking a sampling-based approach that only offers a snapshot in time, Cable helps sponsor banks approach compliance with continuous, end-to-end oversight of their fintech programs.

“Banks are being asked to stand behind the performance of increasingly complex fintech ecosystems,” said Natasha Vernier, co-founder of Cable. “That requires a fundamentally different approach: one that is continuous, data-driven, and verifiable. We built Cable to meet that need, and joining Synctera allows us to bring that capability to a much broader market.”

Once the acquisition is finalized, the Cable team will join Synctera to build out the compliance infrastructure banks and fintechs need to operate responsibly. Cable will also continue to serve its existing client base and will be available as a standalone offering.

As partner bank–fintech relationships scale, traditional oversight that only offers a point-in-time snapshot is no longer sufficient to meet regulatory expectations. Instead, banks are being pushed toward continuous, real-time visibility into how controls are performing across their ecosystems. By integrating Cable’s automated testing and monitoring capabilities, Synctera is positioning itself as not just execution infrastructure, but also as a built-in verification tool.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Gusto Acquires Mosey to Add Compliance Capabilities

Gusto Acquires Mosey to Add Compliance Capabilities
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Gusto, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Gusto acquired compliance platform Mosey to embed small business compliance tools into its payroll and HR platform.
  • The purchase allows Gusto to integrate state and local business registration, filings, and ongoing compliance directly into its platform that serves 400,000 small businesses.
  • Mosey will help Gusto attract compliance-first customers while adding value via new upsell opportunities.

Payroll, benefits, and HR management solutions company Gusto has acquired business compliance platform Mosey. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Gusto plans to leverage Mosey to help its customers manage their compliance obligations.

Mosey was founded in 2021 to help small business owners avoid common compliance pitfalls such as hiring without the right legal setup, configuring payroll incorrectly, and missing tax deadlines. “I started Mosey because I’d made every compliance mistake myself, and then I watched thousands of other businesses make the same ones,” said Mosey Founder Alex Kehayias. “The problem isn’t that small business owners don’t care about compliance, it’s that they shouldn’t have to become experts in it. Joining Gusto means we can bring that vision to the millions of small businesses that need it most.”

“Building a business is hard enough without compliance getting in the way,” said Gusto Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Tomer London. “With Mosey now part of Gusto, we can do what Gusto has always done: take complexity off the plate of small business owners so they can focus on what they actually started their business to do. This is a natural extension of our vision to be the platform that helps small businesses start, hire, and grow.”

Acquiring Mosey will allow Gusto to offer state and local registration, filings, renewal, and ongoing compliance management directly within its own platform. Once integrated, Gusto’s 400,000+ small business clients will be able to hire, pay their teams, and manage their compliance obligations from a single place.

Specifically, Gusto will add:

  • State and local business registrations
  • Entity management, ongoing filings and renewals
  • Resolving agency mail
  • Real-time surfacing of new compliance obligations as businesses grow or expand to new states

Strategically, Gusto will be able to use Mosey’s technologies to attract clients seeking compliance strategies, but not necessarily HR capabilities. Additionally, it will allow Gusto to cross-sell Mosey’s compliance capabilities to its existing customer base.

This is another case of “rebundling” fintech, in which fintech platforms are piling on more capabilities to their long-standing platforms in order to add value and create a broader, more encompassing ecosystem for clients. The deal comes eight months after Gusto acquired retirement specialist Guideline to offer 401(k) retirement plans through its platform.

Gusto, originally known as ZenPayroll, was founded in 2011 and provides a cloud-based payroll, benefits, HR management, and business financial management solution. If the San Francisco-based company continues down its current path of expansion, it may eventually offer corporate credit cards and business banking tools.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya

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Mastercard Acquires Stablecoin Infrastructure BVNK for $1.8 Billion

Mastercard Acquires Stablecoin Infrastructure BVNK for $1.8 Billion
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Mastercard is acquiring stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to $1.8 billion to bridge fiat and on-chain payments within a single network.
  • The deal positions Mastercard to connect cards, bank rails, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits to create a unified, multi-rail payments ecosystem.
  • While competitor Visa relies on a partnership-led approach to stablecoin integration, Mastercard is seeking to own the infrastructure layer outright.

Mastercard is making a move to own the rails that bridge stablecoins and fiat this week. The payments giant is acquiring stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments. 

The announcement comes at a time when the current stablecoin market capitalization exceeds $316 billion, a figure that is up 2.5x from 2023. It also comes as users across the globe are increasingly open to holding stablecoins. In a recent survey of over 4,000 stablecoin and crypto holders, BVNK found that 56% of participants expressed plans to acquire more stablecoins within the next 12 months.

This increased utility of stablecoins is creating a need in the traditional financial space as users require a bridge between fiat and stablecoins. As a result, banks and fintechs need to offer their customers payment options enabled by stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

Mastercard anticipates that acquiring BVNK’s stablecoin infrastructure will allow it to become the bridge between fiat and stablecoins. The company will connect stablecoin rails to its own network to offer consumers the accessibility and interoperability they have come to expect in the traditional finance realm.

“We expect that most financial institutions and fintechs will in time provide digital currency services, be it with stablecoins or tokenized deposits. We want to support them and their customers with a best-in-class, highly compliant, interoperable offering that brings the benefits of tokenized money to the real world,” said Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert. “This acquisition reinforces what we have always done, using innovation and technology to power economies and empower people. Adding on-chain rails to our network will support speed and programmability for virtually every type of transaction.”

Mastercard isn’t the first traditional card network making a move to establish a foothold in the stablecoin space. Visa has formed partnerships with Circle and Bridge to support USDC payments and enable on-chain settlement flows. Mastercard, however, is taking things a step further. Instead of relying on a partnership-led approach, the network giant is acquiring the stablecoin infrastructure outright. Bringing the infrastructure in-house will allow Mastercard to connect traditional finance, on-chain assets, and enterprise payment flows within a single network.

BVNK was founded in 2021 and currently processes over $25 billion each year on behalf of enterprises and payment service providers. The UK-based company leverages stablecoins to enable businesses to move value instantly across borders and networks. Through its partnerships with global licensing bodies and Tier 1 banks, BVNK serves clients such as Worldpay, Deel, and dLocal.

“This partnership is about complementary strengths: Mastercard brings 200+ countries and territories, institutional trust and settlement rails. BVNK brings proven stablecoin infrastructure, deep expertise and an enterprise customer base,” said BVNK Co-founder and CEO Jesse Hemson-Struthers in a post on LinkedIn. “More trust attracts more users. More users attract more businesses. More businesses attract more developers. And suddenly, moving money on stablecoin rails becomes as routine as moving money on traditional rails—accessible to everyone.”

Once the acquisition is finalized later this year, Mastercard will be able to offer a single network to connect cards, bank rails, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits. The new, multi-rail approach will let customers choose the solutions that work best for them without tying them down to a single platform.

“This deal brings together complementary capabilities to define and deliver the future of money,” said Hemson-Struthers. “Together, we’re able to deliver an unprecedented infrastructure for digital currency-based financial services.”

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Ramp Acquires Guest and Travel Expense Company Juno

Ramp Acquires Guest and Travel Expense Company Juno
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Ramp is acquiring travel and expense startup Juno to expand its capabilities in managing complex travel spending, particularly for non-employees.
  • Integrating Juno’s platform will help Ramp coordinate booking, payments, reimbursements, and reconciliation for guest travel alongside employee expenses within a single platform.
  • The new capabilities will help Ramp compete with other business finance software tools like Brex.

Corporate card and expense management platform Ramp is buying Colorado-based Juno, a travel and expense management company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2024, Juno helps businesses coordinate complex travel and expenses. Organizations can book travel, reimburse out-of-pocket expenses, and reconcile travel payments quickly. Juno’s platform is particularly helpful for organizations that pay for travel for non-employees.

“We’ve spent the better part of a decade working on the guest travel problem,” said Devon Tivona, co-CEO and founder of Juno. “These aren’t anonymous business travelers. They’re candidates, customers, partners. The trip is part of the impression. Ramp has the platform, the customers, and the ambition. That’s why we’re here.”

Ramp will use Juno to expand its travel and expense capabilities, especially for companies that manage travel for contractors, partners, and other non-employees. Integrating Juno’s technology into its platform will allow Ramp to streamline the coordination, payment, and reconciliation of guest travel alongside employee expenses. These new capabilities give Ramp a more comprehensive travel solution that will help businesses manage a wider range of travel-related spending within a single financial operations platform.

“Guest travel is a hard problem. It’s messy, operationally heavy, and has real business consequences,” said Ramp co-founder and CTO Karim Atiyeh. “A bad candidate travel experience can cost you a hire. Juno built something strong in a category that matters. Our job now is to give them leverage and stay out of the way.”

Business finance software heated up earlier this decade, receiving hundreds of millions in VC investment during a time when the rest of fintech was in a funding downturn. To keep competitive, corporate card and expense platforms such as Ramp and Brex have increasingly added travel capabilities, while travel-focused companies like Navan have expanded into expense management. By adding guest travel capabilities through Juno, Ramp is positioning itself to manage an even broader category of corporate travel spending.

Ramp was founded in 2019 and has experienced notable growth, most recently fueled by a $300 million financing round that valued it at $32 billion. The company powers over $100 billion in purchases annually for its more than 50,000 customers, which range from family farms to space startups.

Photo by Gustavo Fring

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