An Alberta-born financial technology upstart has been acquired by a private equity firm based in the United States.
Founded in 1983, the Ohio-based Primus Capital recently acquired a majority stake in Reach—an e-commerce software-as-a-service platform launched from Calgary—according to a report from BetaKit.
The announcement follows a record year of investment for Canadian fintech.
Reach’s founder, chief executive officer Sam Rainieri, confirmed to BK that the Canadian fintech’s staff of 122 workers will remain employed. While declining to disclose the value of the transaction, Rainieri said the deal cleared the upstart’s debt and bought out other investors.
The entrepreneur says Primus, which will join Reach’s board, is “very, very, very much invested” in the Calgary fintech.
Ron Hess, Primus’ managing director, stated to BK that the firm had been building a relationship with Reach over multiple years prior to the acquisition. He believes that the Canadian startup offers an “innovative approach to solving the pain points of global expansion for retail and digital businesses.”
Reach leverages partnerships with currency exchange providers to offer customers real-time exchange rates guaranteed for up to 90 days. It also helps with international tax compliance and fraud prevention. Providing a robust toolkit, the firm’s platform is designed to include everything needed for merchants to maximize global e-commerce via no-code integration or customizable APIs.
The startup spun out of Calforex, a Calgary-based foreign exchange business, in 2019.
Moving forward, Reach intends to use capital from Primus to scale operations and accelerate its product roadmap, according to Betakit. This includes building on existing markets in North America, the UK, and Australia, by expanding into new regions such as Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
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