Canada-listed payment company Nuvei to acquire crypto firm Simplex for $250 million
Nuvei Corporation, a Canada-listed payment processing company with a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion, has agreed to acquire crypto firm Simplex for $250 million.
Announcing the news on Thursday, Nuvei said the deal is all in cash and is expected to close in the second half of this year, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions.
Simplex is an Israel-based crypto payment processor, providing on-ramp and off-ramp services to crypto exchanges and firms, including Binance and Huobi. Nuvei said Simplex processed around $500 million of total volume in 2020 and is expected to process more than $2 billion of total volume in 2021.
"Simplex's infrastructure is a natural fit for Nuvei's Native Commerce Platform, further strengthening the capabilities and overall value proposition of our single-integration approach to payments," said Nuvei chairman and CEO Philip Fayer. Nuvei's commerce platform connects merchants in 200 markets, supporting 470 local and alternative payment methods, including cryptocurrencies.
"We expect Simplex to enhance and expand Nuvei's steadily growing portfolio of alternative payment methods, adding turnkey simplicity to the process of buying and selling cryptocurrency and converting it back to fiat within a user account," said Fayer.
The acquisition of Simplex will also provide Nuvei with an electronic money institution (EMI) license to offer international bank account numbers (IBANs) to clients and offer future banking and card issuing capabilities.
Simplex has permission to issue Visa cards. Last December, the firm became a principal member of Visa in Europe.
Founded in 2014, Simplex has raised $18 million to date and employs 160 people, co-founder and CEO Nimrod Lehavi told The Block. The firm would remain a separate entity within Nuvei, said Lehavi.
