Marqeta announces agreement to acquire Power Finance, Inc.

Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ), a global modern card issuance platform, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire credit card program management platform Power Finance, Inc. (“Power”). The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023, subject to normal closing conditions.

“We are very excited to welcome the Power team and product to Marqeta. We are already seeing significant demand for differentiated lending products from companies looking to innovate in this area, which is held back by the limitations of legacy technology.” said Simon Khalaf, the new CEO of Marqeta. “We have carefully considered possible acquisitions in order to quickly establish Marqeta’s leadership in today’s lending space. It was clear to us that Power would power the Marqeta platform with a best-in-class technology stack for managing credit card programs.”

The Power cloud platform offers credit card program management services for companies creating new credit card programs. The company was founded in early 2021 by veteran fintech CEO Randy Fernando and CFO Andrew Dust. Power investors include Anthemis, Fin Capital, CRV, Dash Fund and Restive Ventures. As part of this acquisition, Power Finance CEO Randy Fernando will now lead the product management of credit card platform Marqeta.

The combination of the Marqeta and Power platforms allows Marqeta to directly offer its customers the tools they need to create innovative credit products that meet the changing credit card requirements and expectations of consumers and businesses. Power and Marqeta were built on similar core principles with a modern and highly scalable platform built with today’s developers in mind. This acquisition will allow Marqeta customers to launch a wide range of loan products and designs. It will combine Power’s next generation rewards engine with Marqeta’s own rewards innovations, as well as adding the Power data toolbox and the ability to embed experiences into existing mobile and web apps. Marqeta expects to use the acquisition of Power to significantly expand the capabilities of its loan product.

“Companies like ours are made possible by Marqeta blazing the trail in modern card issuance by demonstrating the ability to pay with a flexible and modern payment infrastructure,” said Randy Fernando, co-founder and CEO of Power Finance. “At Power, we have built a complete cloud-based credit card issuance platform, and by becoming part of Marqeta, we now have the opportunity to bring this innovation to a much larger market on a global scale.”

The purchase price, which is subject to the usual adjustments, consists of $223 million in cash, approximately one-third of which is payable over a two-year period subject to certain conditions, plus $52 million in cash depending on a milestone expected to be reached within next 12 months.