BELGIUM - Gimv sells stake in Clear2Pay to US-based Aquiline

frannie
07 December 2009

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As part of a EUR 50m funding round for Clear2Pay led by US-based Aquiline, Belgian private equity and venture investor Gimv has divested its stake in the online payment solutions company to the US-based private equity firm.

Clear2Pay develops software to reduce transaction and processing costs of online payments. Headquartered in Brussels, it has 15 offices worldwide and employs 450. Its functions include payment origin reports, links to back-office processing systems, clearing, netting and settlement and the company counts ING, Banco Santander, VISA and MasterCard among its clients. The company operates from 15 offices around the world and employs 450 people.

The now profitable business attracted its first round of institutional financing in 2001 when Big Bang Ventures provided EUR 1.8m alongside management and has since then secured close to EUR 50m in venture backing. In 2003, Big Bang was joined by supplier of OTC medicine and personal products, Omega Pharma, and private investor Christian Dumolin, chairman of Trust Capital, in a EUR 5.35m round. Quest for Growth led a EUR 6.1 round in 2004, and in 2006 Gimv joined the consortium contributing EUR 4.7m in a fourth round raising a total of EUR 15.7m. Gimv continued to back the company in two rounds in 2008, raising totals of EUR 10m and EUR 6m.

The recent investment round led by Aquiline, where some of the existing backers also participated, comes as Clear2Pay is preparing its US expansion.

Gimv's sale of its stake had a positive impact of EUR 2.2m (EUR 0.10 per share) on the investment firm's last published equity value at 30 September 2009.