On the 11th of December, CVC Growth Partners, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, closed a USD 80 million investment in Kount. Why did CVC Growth Partners want to invest in the Ecommerce and Fraud Prevention Industry and why Kount?
CVC Growth Partners perceives payments fraud and security as a thriving industry and expects it to expand from USD 9 billion to more than USD 21 billion in 2019 (Markets and Markets, 2015) .
Kount’s experience and analysis reflects this growth. The sustained boom in ecommerce and mcommerce has, sadly, caused a rise in online fraud. New opportunities for commerce will also mean new opportunities for fraudsters. Merchants, payments service providers and acquirers are looking to fight back against the fraudsters, thus the rapid expansion of our industry is critical to insuring their security.
As for why CVC wanted to invest in Kount, their in-depth research into the sector identified Kount as a market leader, something reflected in our growth, profile and market share.
Why does this deal make sense to Kount?
Ecommerce and mcommerce are both growing incredibly fast and evolving even faster. With this evolution comes more opportunities for fraudsters to exploit online merchants of all kinds and sizes. Kount is already well positioned to help those merchants. Yet, by partnering with CVC, Kount will gain access to the additional resources necessary to accelerate its already remarkable growth trajectory. This means the company will expand into new markets and regions, speed up the process of bringing new products and services to the market and increase its leadership position in the fraud-control industry.
For what kind of product development projects will the money be used for?
At this stage, it is still too early to go into precise details about new products and developments.
What we can say is that there will be investment into Kount Complete, our all-in-one, SaaS platform which is designed for merchants of all sizes operating in all kinds of card-not-present environments, including mobile.
For the financial services sector, we will also be investing further in Kount Central. This was developed speci?cally for online payment processors such as payment service providers, payment gateways, acquiring banks, ecommerce platforms and hosted pay pages.
Fraudsters are clever and resourceful, therefore we always have to be one step ahead of them to keep merchants safe. In order to do this, we need to continually improve our products to keep them up to date against the latest threats.
Kount is one of the last large independent fraud prevention companies. Will you remain this way? (and if yes, why?)
Kount will continue to be an independent, complete, enterprise-level fraud control solution. Our independence gives us the freedom to make the necessary enhancements to our services without the burden of one particular point of view on what’s best for the merchant.
Of course Jason Glass, Managing Director of CVC Growth Partners and John Clark, Managing Director will join the Kount Board so we can leverage their expertise.
You supply your services to a wide range of customers from luxury brands to gaming, insurance and travel. Are you planning on expanding your scope even further?
Absolutely. We service about a dozen different verticals today and we continually review verticals and segments of the market to either introduce our solution or enhance what we do for those merchants.
About Bradley J. Wiskirchen
Bradley J. Wiskirchen is the CEO of Keynetics and its subsidiary Kount. He is also the Executive Chairman of Keynetics’ subsidiary ClickBank. Wiskirchen joined Keynetics in 2005. Under his guidance, Keynetics has become one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest privately held technology companies.
About Kount
Kount is an innovator of solutions for fraud and risk management. The companys “decision engine” platform is ideal for managing fraud in online/telephone channels that process payments and onboard new customers. Kount is committed to offering an end-to-end, single-source solution focused on speed, simplicity and ease of use.
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