Pungle, a Fintech startup that developed a ‘payments-as-a-service platform’ for businesses, has been acquired by global payments company Berkeley Payment Solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“What attracted Berkeley executives to Pungle was Pungle’s industry-leading technology platform.”
Berkeley, a fellow Toronto-based financial services company, offers its own payment solutions for businesses, helping them simplify outbound payments. The company noted that the acquisition of Pungle will help it expand its own technology to enable “seamless end-to-end” payment solutions.
“This acquisition positions Berkeley to be one of the most innovative, fastest-growing FinTech companies globally,” said Jonathon Hamburg, CEO and founder of Berkeley. “We are thrilled to join forces and welcome the Pungle team to our fold, as this will allow us to continue to innovate and build impactful payment technology platforms.”
Pungle was founded in 2017 by Paul Birkness, formerly of Moneris, former Shop.ca senior director of process engineering Braulio Lam, and founding engineer Rohan Nair, currently head of technology at Highline Beta.
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Pungle was created with a specific focus on the business payments landscape. One year ago, a year to the date, to be exact, Pungle announced an integration with Visa Direct to allow for real-time disbursements. The integration would allow customers and businesses to access transferred funds immediately, without having to wait for the cash to ‘clear.’ According to its website, Pungle currently allows its customers to make instant transfers with both Visa and Mastercard. The startup noted that its clients had included unnamed disruptors and innovators looking to build the future of business payments, disbursements, and money transfer services.
As part of the acquisition Pungle’s founders, Birkness and Lam, will join Berkeley’s executive team as chief product officer and chief technology officer, respectively. There was no word on the rest of Pungle’s team, which according to LinkedIn sat at 11 employees overall.
Birkness, the CEO of Pungle, noted that joining Berkeley allows Pungle to provide its customers with more robust features, broader capabilities, and global reach. Berkeley itself claims to manage and disburse more than a billion dollars for its customers, with more than 1,500 corporate clients globally.
“What attracted Berkeley executives to Pungle was Pungle’s industry-leading technology platform, and its robust innovation and development,” said Lawrence Tepperman, president of Berkeley. “Berkeley will be able to offer more than 800,000 current users access to world-class, scalable and reliable digital payment solutions.”
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