San Francisco-based fintech app provider Plaid has made its first major acquisition with the purchase of competitor Quovo for $200 million, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
Plaid hasn’t gone public on the price, but a source familiar with the deal spoke with CNBC to spill the financial beans. Plaid reckons the acquisition will make it easier for developers to build products that incorporate investment and brokerage data.
New York-based Quovo offers investment, insurance, and loan account coverage. Its platform is used by such firms as Betterment, Wealthfront and SoFi, as well as wealthtech companies like Stifel, Vanguard, Empower Retirement, and John Hancock.
Some of Plaid’s users include cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, robo-advisors Betterment and Wealthfront (same as Quovo), trading app Robinhood and PayPal’s digital wallet Venmo.
Plaid plans to build a single platform to let users “build any financial application – from payments to lending to wealth management.”
This deal follows on from last month when Plaid enjoyed a $250 million Series C funding round. With that investment, the start-up earned an impressive valuation of $2.65 billion.
Back in October 201, Plaid linked up with JP Morgan Chase to help the bank make a move toward open banking by enabling account holders to share their financial data with third-party fintech applications.
Prior to that, in May 2018, the company expanded to Canada as its first international market.
The firm was founded in 2013 and has got the backing of some big names. These include Goldman Sachs, Amex, Citi, and Google Ventures. About two years ago Plaid got a handy $44 million in funding led by Goldman Sachs.
Plaid CEO and co-founder Zach Perret presented API for Financial Infrastructure at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. Quovo is a two-time veteran of our developers conferences: sharing the stage with SoFi at FinDEVr New York 2017, and teaming up with Betterment at FinDEVr New York 2016.