Plaid buys fintech rival Quovo for $200m
San Francisco-based fintech app provider Plaid has made its first major acquisition with the purchase of competitor Quovo for $200 million.
Plaid hasn’t got public on the price, but a source familiar with the deal spoke with CNBC to spill the financial beans.
Shares the same customers with Quovo
The rest of the details are freely available, and Plaid reckons the acquisition will make it easier for developers to build products that incorporate investment and brokerage data.
New York-based Quovo offers investment, insurance, and loan account coverage. Its platform is used by such firms as Betterment, Wealthfront and SoFi, as well as wealthtech ones like Stifel, Vanguard, Empower Retirement, and John Hancock.
Some of Plaid’s users include cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, robo-advisors Betterment and Wealthfront (same as Quovo), trading app Robinhood and PayPal’s digital wallet Venmo.
Plaid plans to build a single platform to let users “build any financial application – from payments to lending to wealth management”.
This deal follows on from last month when Plaid enjoyed a $250 million Series C funding round. With that investment the start-up was valued at an impressive $2.65 billion.
Back in October 2018 it linked up with JP Morgan Chase to help the bank make a move toward open banking by enabling account holders to share their financial data with third-party fintech applications.
Prior to that, in May 2018 it expanded to Canada as its first international market.
The firm was founded in 2013 and has got the backing of some big names. These include Goldman Sachs, Amex, Citi and Google Ventures. About two years ago it got a handy $44 million in funding led by Goldman Sachs.
