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FT Partners Advises Judo on its Growth Financing led by Route Sixty-Six Ventures

FT Partners Advises Judo on its Growth Financing led by Route Sixty-Six Ventures

Overview of Transaction

  • On January 21, 2015, Judo Payments (“Judo”) closed a growth financing round with Route 66 Ventures
  • Judo is Europe's leading provider of simple, secure card payments built for mobile
  • Its award winning payment solutions help power some of the largest businesses in Europe while its marketplace solution simplifies payments for businesses of all sizes
  • The Company, headquartered in the U.K., was founded in 2012 and has experienced tremendous growth and shown great early customer traction
  • Route 66 Ventures is a leading private equity firm that provides venture capital, private equity, and debt to emerging financial services companies, and also selectively invests in other industries
  • The additional investment will allow Judo to further build out its end-to-end payment solution in order to spur more adoption amongst merchants

Significance of Transaction

  • Consumers are shifting purchasing to mobile at an unprecedented speed requiring merchants to mobilize their business models
  • mCommerce growth (86%) is outpacing all eCommerce (18%) and in-store (4%) (1)
  • Mobile requires a different approach as consumers are impatient, connections are slow and IP address-based fraud prevention is ineffective
  • Judo enables large merchants to adapt and win while maintaining critical acquirer relationships

FT Partners' Role

  • FT Partners served as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Judo and its Board of Directors
  • Transaction demonstrates FT Partners' continued strength in the Payments sector, with a growing focus on mobile applications

(1) Online Retailing Research (Centre for Retail Research, Nottingham UK)