From “key vendor” to acquirer, Prime Trust has just purchased crowdfunding regtech specialist FundAmerica. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In an email, FundAmerica CEO Scott Purcell emphasized the deep relationship between the two companies (Purcell is CEO of both firms and is Chief Trust Officer of Prime Trust). He wrote “Prime Trust (is) developing a massive amount of proprietary software on top of FundAmerica’s code-base, so the acquisition is symbiotic for everyone involved.”
FundAmerica builds SEC-compliant solutions for technology-based securities offerings. The company’s platform provides AML screening and bad actor checks, payment acceptance solutions for both fiat and cryptocurrencies, online investing, escrow management, and broker-dealer compliance and syndication tools. To date, FundAmerica has raised more than $750 million from 150,000 investors in more than 1,000 offerings.
Prime Trust is a blockchain-driven trust company that sees itself disrupting the traditional trust industry in the same way PayPal disrupted merchant processing. The firm serves as a custodian and trustee for personal and corporate trusts, as well as for crowdfunding platforms. It holds cash and non-cash assets including stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies.
Combining the two companies provides capital markets participants with a one-stop-shop in terms of both regulatory and custodial services. And Purcell pledged that there would be no disruption for clients and partners of FundAmerica or Prime Trust. “The APIs, the technology, and the services all continue without interruption,” Purcell wrote. “They will just get better and better.”
He added, “The important thing is that Prime Trust and FundAmerica are now unified and even better positioned to deliver best-in-class technology, compliance, trust, and custodial services to everyone involved in online capital markets; including ICOs and SCOs.”
Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, FundAmerica demonstrated its API for crowdfunding platform compliance at FinovateSpring 2015. Previous to its acquisition, the company had raised $2.3 million in funding.