Charlotte startup Payzer is set to be acquired by Wex Inc. (NYSE: WEX), a financial technology company based in Portland, Maine.
The deal is valued at $250 million, with additional consideration of up to $11 million, and expected to close before the end of the year. Wex plans to finance the purchase through its revolving credit facility and cash on hand, the company said in a news release yesterday.
Payzer, co-founded in 2012 by Joe Giordano and Doug Little, is a mobile payment platform. It has a mobile app and online platform that allows contractors to take payments in the field and provides customers with instant credit approval. Giordano previously said the platform was developed to serve the trade industry, or as he called it, "mobile retail."
The startup serves contract workers in the HVAC, plumbing, roofing and electric fields. Payzer also works with original equipment manufacturers in the industries its serves.
Wex, which was founded in 1983 and went public in 2005, is a fintech-service provider for fleet, travel and health-care markets. It said its acquisition of Payzer will help grow its product line and offer new and scalable software-as-a-service solutions for its roughly 150,000 small business clients.
“We are thrilled at the prospect of providing an exciting new offering for our mobility customers with the anticipated acquisition of Payzer,” Melissa Smith, Wex’s chair, CEO and president, said in a statement. “Payzer's top-tier service offering and feature set is at the convergence of SaaS and payments. Payzer is an example of us finding a high-growth market with a customer base that overlaps with our current customer footprint, with a great product and service offering to address the needs of these customers."
The deal comes after Payzer closed on a $23 million Series D funding round in June 2021. It had more than 5,000 contractor businesses, totaling more than 40,000 individual users at the time.
Payzer will be Wex's second acquisition this year. In late July, it purchased a health and benefits division from fintech company Ascensus in a $180 million deal. Wex has 600,000-plus customers and serves about 19 million vehicles on its mobility platforms.
