Private equity firm Advent International has announced its acquisition of myPOS through the newly formed AI Circle Bidco, or Circle, to expand its payments services.
The buyout values the London-based myPOS around €500 million ($542.15 million) according to Reuters.
With over 500 employees, myPOS provides a suite of payments, accounts and card solutions for small merchants and sole traders. The business serves around 170,000 merchants in Europe across multiple sectors, including food and beverages, professional services, retail and transportation.
Laurent Le Moal former CEO of PayU and vice-president at PayPal, has joined as chairman of Circle.
Christo Georgiev, myPOS founder, is exiting the business, while management will remain involved and invested Reuters was told.
Circle’s ambition is to become a leading end-to-end payments and technology company serving small merchants and sole traders across Europe, who are traditionally underserved by banks.
Fabio Cali, director at Advent International, commented: “Acquiring myPOS is the first step on this journey and is a business we have followed for over five years, closely tracking its evolution and development. We intend to draw on our strong and in-depth payment processing and broader financial services experience, and with the support of Laurent and our wide network of tenured operating partners, are confident we can build a successful and highly essential platform in Europe.”
This move comes after Advent added Kahina Van Dyke as an operating partner to further build the company’s fintech franchise.
Advent has been involved in a number of high-scale investments in digital payments, such as MangoPay and Brazil’s Ebanx.
Le Moal said: “We have big ambitions to scale the Circle payments and technology platform, and to expand its range of differentiated digital offerings to traditionally underserved sole traders and small merchants. The opportunities to scale the platform’s digital capabilities, to expand internationally, to grow into new services such as software and lending and in turn to support economic growth, are real and exciting, and I cannot wait to start on this journey together with the Advent team.”
The purchase is subject to regulatory approvals, but is expected to close before Q4 2023.