One of the more important jobs of the accounts payable professional is keeping up with what is happening in the industry at large. This is critical for a few reasons, including skills development and the hunt for new technologies, but is sometimes difficult to do. That is why, each week, the team at Payables Place collects news stories and announcements on the people, companies, and events that can have the biggest impact on the accounts payable team; this cuts down on the amount of time that the AP professional needs to spend keeping up to date and makes it easier to get back to the task at hand—driving strategic value for the organization.
This week in payables news includes a few developments: Perfect Commerce finalized its acquisition of Hubwoo, Oildex named a new chief technology officer, and AvidXchange raised $225 million in its latest funding round. Read on to find out more about these and all the other impactful news from around the accounts payable world.
Perfect Commerce Completes Acquisition of Hubwoo S.A.
Perfect Commerce announced this week that it had finalized its acquisition of Paris-based Hubwoo S.A., which Ardent wrote about in early July shortly after the tender offer was first revealed. Virginia-based Perfect Commerce now owns a controlling interest in Hubwoo, blending two companies with complementary solutions that both have their roots in Commerce One, the market leader of the B2B internet boom in the 1990s.
The acquisition is a solid one for Perfect Commerce, which gains one of the largest business networks by transaction volume in Hubwoo as well as strong catalogue management capabilities. Perfect also has the opportunity to use Hubwoo’s European-focus to offer its complementary solutions to a wider array of customers much more quickly than investing in organic growth. As we wrote in July, one of the clearest benefits would come if Perfect manages to convert a reasonable share of Hubwoo’s customers from SAP to its own solutions, but either way this is a good deal for both companies.
Changes in Basware’s Executive Team
Basware announced last week that Chief Marketing Officer Steve Muddiman will leave the company as of September 30, 2015, to take up a new position outside Basware. Muddiman has worked at Basware since September 2008, first as the senior vice president of global marketing, and in December 2013 was named CMO—a member of the executive team. Basware did not disclose what job Muddiman was departing for, but CEO Esa Tihilä will take on responsibility for Basware’s marketing until the company can find itself a new CMO.
Muddiman’s departure comes on something of a high note. Basware’s revenue company-wide has been on an upswing lately, and the company has signed several new contracts in Europe and North America. There is no telling how long it will take the company to find a new CMO once Muddiman leaves for his new corporate home, but it will be interesting to see whom the Finnish procure-to-pay solution provider selects to head its global marketing team.
AvidXchange Closes $225 Million Minority Growth Financing Led by Bain Capital Ventures; Breaks Ground on New Corporate Campus
AvidXchange announced this week that it had raised $225 million in growth financing, adding a slate of new minority partners to its investors. Bain Capital Ventures led the financing round, which also included Foundry Group, NYCA Partners, KeyBank, Square 1 Bank, and TPG Special Situations Partners. This latest round of investment adds three new directors to Avid’s board, and indicates the interest level of major technology-focused investment firms in AvidXchange’s product line and growth strategy. Avid plans to use most of the $225 million raised to hire staff, make strategic acquisitions, and develop new products.
News of the financing round comes nearly three months after Avid finalized its acquisition of Houston-based Strongroom Solutions and 10 months after its acquisition of Utah-based Piracle Payment Solutions. Avid’s business has been on a tremendous upswing between those acquisitions and major strategic partnerships, so the new financing—and the addition of minority partners—is an indicator that the company is on a solid growth trajectory.
In other news, Avid also broke ground this week on a new corporate headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. The ceremony took place at the NC Music Factory, where Avid’s 420 employees currently work. N.C. Governor Pat McCrory attended the event, as did Charlotte Mayor Dan Clodfelter; the expansion of the 32-acre site at the NC Music Factory is intended to support the more than 600 technology jobs that Avid plans to create over the next four years because of its explosive corporate growth. The company has already added 180 new positions this year, and so far has not slowed down. Avid plans to also soon start construction on a six-story 200,000-square-foot building to be completed in 2017.
Oildex Promotes Michael Weiss to Chief Technology Officer
Oildex this week announced that they had promoted Michael Weiss, senior vice president, products and technology, to the newly created position of Chief Technology Officer. The position was created in the wake of Oildex’s acquisition of ADP’s OpenInvoice, and will involve leading Oildex’s software engineering, quality assurance, technical operations, development operations, database administration and product management efforts in addition to Weiss’s current responsibilities.
Weiss has more than 30 years of experience in oil and gas, software engineering and high tech, including a stint with Halliburton/Landmark where he managed a global development team of approximately 200 software engineers. Weiss joined in Oildex in 2012, and is also an executive-at-large at PIDX International—one of the largest oil and gas industry associations.
Concur Japan Introduces the App Center Bringing Connected Apps to 30 Million Users
Concur this week announced that it would begin offering its App Center in Japan, opening up a marketplace of third-party apps and services that currently provides tools to more than 30 million users worldwide. The App Center operates by seamlessly integrating apps with Concur’s travel and expense reporting solution, and the company hopes to expand with a Japanese developer community in the near future. With this move, Japanese business travelers will be able to access a growing ecosystem of apps specific to the Japanese market such as Nihon Kotsu Nationwide Taxi and Fujisoft, as well as global apps such as Uber and Ping Identity.
The business travel market in Japan was $61.5 billion in 2014, according to industry estimates, so opening up the App Center to the Japanese market is a solid move on Concur’s part. Japan’s GDP also makes it the world’s third largest economy, which means that Concur’s plan to expand with a local developer community could place it in overall solid competitive position with other global travel and expense solution providers.
NACHA’s Payments Innovation Alliance Launches Mobile Wallet Initiative
NACHA announced last week that its Payments Innovation Alliance, a group of more than 200 member organizations throughout the payments ecosystem, has launched a mobile wallet initiative aimed toward creating an “open” acceptance platform that supports both retailer and bank-branded mobile wallets. NACHA currently manages the ACH network in the U.S., and has been a driving force in payments innovation in recent years; its payments alliance is the latest effort in creating collaboration among payments industry players. The initial work of the Alliance Mobile Wallet team will involve creating best practices, provisioning and acceptance issues, and implementation challenges.
Mobile wallets have become a hot technology on both the business and consumer sides recently, between Apple Pay’s launch last year and Samsung Pay due to rollout worldwide this year. Solution providers on the B2B side have also made more of a concerted push toward mobile, which has increasingly become expected as a functionality. NACHA occupies a unique place in the payments ecosystem, so they are well-suited to coordinate the type of interoperability that could make mobile wallets take off. It remains to be seen what the Alliance’s Mobile Wallet team will develop, however, and Ardent will be sure to keep watch.
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