Industry veteran Andy Roberts joins as CEO to lead next phase of growth in the $20 trillion payments market.
StoneEagle Services (VPay®), a leading turnkey B2B payments platform, today announced a $76 million investment led by FTV Capital, a growth equity investment firm with a strong track record in the payments industry. StoneEagle Services plans to fuel accelerated growth by deepening existing customer relationships, further investing in product, expanding sales and marketing, and enhancing its proprietary technology and processing capabilities. The company will be run by new CEO Andy Roberts and existing management will continue with the business. FTV Capital’s Chris Winship, Richard Garman and Robert Anderson will join the company’s board of directors and Bobby Allen, founder and CEO, will become chairman of the board.
While many B2C businesses have reaped the benefit of innovative new payments technologies, the B2B payments landscape remains decades behind, mired in paper and manual processes. StoneEagle Services’ turnkey platform for outsourcing payments (checks, ACH, plastic and virtual cards) offers a compelling replacement to manage inefficient payment processes like paper checks. The company brings together flexible, purpose-built products with integrated service and support, patented technology, multiple funding models and unique expertise to streamline claims payments across a variety of insurance industries including: group health, workers’ compensation, auto and warranty. Their payment solutions help payers and providers reduce manual processes, automate payment reconciliation, mitigate fraud losses and limit delays in funding or settlement without any account enrollment. According to industry research, commercial spend in the U.S. in 2014 was more than $20 trillion with the majority of payments still done via check (50% at large corporations and 67% at middle market companies) making the B2B landscape one of the last ‘great frontiers’ in payments.
“The visionary StoneEagle management team has built a highly flexible, scalable payments platform that is revolutionizing claims processing,” said Andy Roberts, CEO of StoneEagle Services. “I am thrilled to be joining StoneEagle, and it is my mission to continue to deliver the secure, effective products our customers rely on to help them reduce processing costs and complexity.”
A veteran with 35 years of experience in the payments industry, Roberts was most recently president and CEO of Fleet One, a provider of fuel cards and fleet management information services to trucking, commercial and government vehicle fleets. FTV Capital was an investor in Fleet One and worked alongside Roberts to successfully scale the company which was later acquired by Wright Express.
“Having invested in the payments industry for the past 17 years, an unprecedented period of rapid, disruptive change, we know that companies that quickly adapt to new technology, new regulation and new demands from customers are most likely to succeed,” explains Chris Winship, partner at FTV Capital. “StoneEagle has developed a growing, highly satisfied customer base because of their proven ability to streamline and manage complex transactions. Andy’s highly relevant industry expertise, strong network relationships, and proven leadership skills will help propel StoneEagle in its expansion.”
“We are extremely excited to be partnering with FTV Capital, a growth equity firm that has had tremendous success scaling payments and transaction processing businesses like ours,” commented Bobby Allen, StoneEagle chairman of the board. “Having Andy, a proven industry leader, at the helm, and being able to leverage FTV’s payments expertise and strategic relationships has positioned us to accelerate the success and leadership of our business within this massive market.”
About StoneEagle Services (VPay®)
StoneEagle Services (VPay®) offers a turn-key platform that distributes, administers and processes virtual and plastic cards, checks and ACH payments via their end-to-end issuing and processing capabilities. StoneEagle Services (VPay®) was previously a part of the StoneEagle companies which have over 30 years of experience in the design and development of enterprise wide insurance industry applications, data management and outsourced solutions. StoneEagle Services is based in Richardson, Texas. For or more information, visit www.vpayusa.com.
About FTV Capital
FTV Capital is a growth equity investment firm that has raised over $1.8 billion since inception to invest in high-growth companies offering a range of innovative solutions across three sectors: enterprise technology and services, financial services, and payments/transaction processing. FTV’s experienced team leverages its domain expertise and proven track record in each of these sectors to help motivated management teams accelerate growth. FTV also provides companies with access to its Global Partner Network, a group of the world’s leading enterprises and executives who have helped FTV portfolio companies for more than a decade. Founded in 1998, FTV Capital has invested in 90 portfolio companies, including payments companies such as CardConnect, CashStar, Clearent, WePay, FleetOne (acquired by Wright Express) and MedSynergies, a revenue cycle/business process management company for health care organizations and physicians (acquired by Optum, part of United HealthGroup). FTV has offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, visit ftvcapital.com.
Contacts
Laura Cruz
TENOR PARTNERS FOR FTV CAPITAL
(917) 406-7517
laura@tenorcom.com