JPMorgan has bet on a bootstrapped cloud payments fintech
JPMorgan has got a new fintech darling. It's called Renovite.
Founded by Viren Rana, a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” Renovite is a California-headquartered company in the payments space. JPMorgan announced that it was acquiring the firm for an undisclosed sum in September. Rana says his management style as “bootstrapping.” Rana previously founded ISTS Worldwide, another payments fintech, which he sold Clear2Pay, which went on to become a subsidiary of FIS, an American fintech giant.
Fintech acquisitions are down to less than $90bn this year, from $300bn in 2017, but JPMorgan is single-handedly bucking that trend. It's made a string of acquisitions in 2022, including Greek-based Viva Wallet and Ireland-based Global Shares. The acquisitions come as the bank has committed to spend $12bn on technology this year, despite some analysts questioning its spending plans.
Renovite is a California-headquartered company with a European headquarters near Edinburgh. It deals primarily in the payments space. It describes itself as a “a global team of payments experts with absolute knowledge and decades of experience,” and owns proprietary technology that JPMorgan has been using for some time – the bank initially approached Renovite as a client last year before deciding the value that the start-up could add to JPM’s existing offerings to merchants. Chief Operating Officer, Jim Tomaney, is still based in Scotland.
The merged business is being spearheaded by Mike Blandina, JPMorgan's Atlanta Georgia-based head of payments technology. Blandina is a veteran engineer of PayPal, Westfield, Google, and OneMarket, among others.
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