Kushki, the payment technology company that connects LatAm through payments has acquired Billpocket, a Mexican financial services platform that allows businesses to accept card payments. The acquisition brings together two best-in-class payment companies, combining Kushki’s online expertise and regional positioning with Billpocket’s experience and know-how in card present payments.
Coming just 2 months after Kushki reached Unicorn status and after registering a 200% regional growth in 2021, the acquisition is another step towards Kushki’s mission of connecting LatAm through payments with the development of new, modern payment infrastructure for the region. Billpocket’s technology and offline payment infrastructure strengths Kushki’s consolidation in Mexico and the company expects a 3X growth in the next months.
The acquisition highlights Kushki’s strategy to partner and provide infrastructure to all players of the payment ecosystem, who are interested in taking advantage of the company’s solutions. At the same time, it will maintain its commitment to having an open ecosystem by serving and collaborating with any partner that wants to embed payments on their business strategies.
“Since the moment we met Alejandro Guízar and his team at Billpocket, we were highly impressed with not only their expertise and knowledge of the card present payment solutions, but also with how much we shared a commitment to democratize payments in LatAm through new tech infrastructure. That’s why this acquisition was a very natural fit for both companies and we expect great things to come from it”, declared Aron Schwarzkopf, CEO and co-founder of Kushki.
Founded in Guadalajara, Mexico over 10 years ago, Billpocket has a rich history servicing the Mexican payments market and became one of the first aggregators in the country, a key element to facilitating electronic payments by operating as an intermediary between banks and businesses. The more than 170 employees from Billpocket will remain as part of the company and will be part of a separate business unit inside Kushki, led by their founder, Alejandro Guízar.
“This is the result of our work for over a decade, focusing on empowering entrepreneurs around Mexico and allowing businesses to grow. We are aligned with Kushki’s mission to connect LatAm with advanced electronic payment capabilities and now, with our technology and expertise combined, we’ll be able to work with even more partners across the region, contributing to the ever growing Paytech ecosystem. Being a Mexican company and with our devotion to the local ecosystem, it was key for us to partner with a company that has a strong focus and commitment with Mexico, and we found that in Kushki which is quickly becoming a local power player”, said Alejandro Guízar, Billpocket’s CEO and founder.
Mexico is a key market for Kushki’s operation, being the region’s second-largest economy in Latin America and with an e-commerce scenario expected to be worth $146 USD billions by 2025. This growth is fueled by the recent digital payment boom, boosted by the social changes that the pandemic generated, a steady growth for the Internet penetration, which now covers 76% of the population and a high use of smartphones, which are now used by 69% of all Mexicans.
The intent to acquire the company has already been approved by Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Competencia Económica, COFECE and the transaction is in the process of closing and is expected to be completed during the next couple of months.