UK payment solutions provider, Checkout.com, announced on Wednesday it acquired New York tech startup ProcessOut, the first of its kind for the London-based fintech firm.
The news comes after a major $234m funding round was announced last year, where the company was valued at roughly $2bn, Europe's largest fintech Series A round in history.
ProcessOut, founded in 2015 by six French entrepreneurs and with offices in New York and Paris, works with leading startups such as Glovo, Dashlane, Rakuten and Veepee, by providing a platform for businesses for monitoring payment processing capabilities.
Checkout.com founder and chief executive, Guillaume Pausaz, said that after analysing over $20bn in transactions in 2019, ProcessOut was a "fit" for the UK firm and was "delighted" to make [ProcessOut] its first acquisition.
— Checkout.com (@Checkout) February 26, 2020
He added: "Combining their expertise and features with our platform will allow us to offer our global merchants a deeper set of actionable insights to improve their acceptance rates and maximize the cost efficiency of their payments.
ProcessOut was "aligned" with Checkout.com's values due to increased transparency, Mr Pausaz said, adding that he was "really excited" to bring the NY-based company onboard.
Speaking further, ProcessOut chief product officer and co-founder, Manuel Huez, said that his team was excited to join at "such a pivotal moment" and that the company was looking forward to the "next chapter of this journey".
ProcessOut's 14-person team will join Checkout.com's offices in Paris and London amid strong growth in the EMEA, announcing in September last year it had been awarded an Electric Money Institution licence by French regulators. The UK firm hosts eleven offices worldwide and has announced further plans to boost staff from roughly 600 to 1,000 employees over the next year, it was revealed in a statement.
The developments come as a boost of confidence in the UK fintect industry amid tense Brexit negotiations set to take place this year between London and Brussels, starting on 2 March, after the former officially withdrew from the European Union on 31 January. Aquisitions were announced in March last year after US fintech giant Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) bought UK fintech firm WorldPay, formerly owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, for roughly $43bn, with the European Commission approving the sale in 2010.
Further successes were announced at the Russian-British Business Forum in November last year after chief executive group for PayXpert, Nicolas Riegert, launched the Russian Mir payment scheme in the UK, with the Cambridge-based fintech firm acting as the European acquirer of the Russian platform across Europe.
