Corsair, a New York-based private equity firm, announced on Wednesday that it had acquired a majority stake in Aurora Payments, a Tempe-based payment processing company.
Aurora works with multiple platforms and banks to facilitate credit card processing, e-commerce payments as well as to help deploy mobile and contactless credit card readers in stores. The company was founded in 2005 and has since grown to service 22,000 merchants on its platform and process $10 billion in payments annually.
The company employs just under 100 people, including 36 based in Tempe. Brian Goudie, Aurora’s CEO, works out of the Tempe office and he will continue to lead the company.
“With the addition of Corsair Capital and their deep fintech investment roots Aurora Payments is ready to make transformational changes that will assist our small business clients,” Goudie said in a statement.
“The capital infusion will accelerate our payments technology development, human capital investment as well as our acquisition strategy," he continued. "On the human capital front we moved our headquarters to Tempe, AZ in November 2018 and I could not be happier about what the Phoenix/Tempe community has to offer a company like ours and our employees. We will be hiring for talent and our primary location to do so will be Tempe go forward.”
Corsair primarily invests in companies in infrastructure and in financial services. It previously invested in other payment platforms such as REPAY, TreviPay, and Currencies Direct.
Aurora is registered as both an independent sales organization (ISO) and as a full-service provider (FSP) for several banks, including Wells Fargo Bank, Elavon bank in Atlanta, Evolve Bank in Trust in Memphis and Merrick Bank in Utah. The FSP registration allow Aurora to offer small business customers a suite of services all in one place.
William Blair acted as financial advisor and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as legal advisor to Corsair. Leonis Partners acted as financial advisor and Honigman LLP acted as legal advisor to Aurora.
