What the business is
APIs for payments, card issuing and wallets — fintech-as-a-service — sold to enterprises like Uber, Ikea, Meta and Netflix.
The bet
Buying PayU's licensed emerging-markets operation beats building licences country by country on the road to a public-market payments platform.
Starting capital
$806M+ raised to date; a $700M round in final stages of closing to finance the deal — about 3% of all 2023 fintech fundraising.
How it started
Rapyd, founded in Israel and headquartered in London, had built a fintech-as-a-service platform covering payments, card issuing and wallets for some 100 major enterprise businesses.
What happened
On 31 July 2023 Rapyd agreed to pay $610M for PayU's Global Payment Organisation, Prosus's emerging-markets payments group; Prosus kept India, Turkey and Southeast Asia. CEO Arik Shtilman said the deal brings Rapyd to 41 licensed or regulated countries and strengthens card acquiring in Latin America and parts of Europe, complementing its 1,200-plus local payment methods. The purchase would be the largest fintech deal of 2023 to that point, funded by the $700M round. The GPO unit had contributed to $83M in trading losses for Prosus.
What has to be true
Buying the GPO converts years of regulatory work into a single purchase — the licence footprint is the product for an enterprise payments layer.
It is counter-cyclical: Rapyd is acquiring while private and public fintechs face downturn pressure.
The deal sharpens both sellers and buyers — Prosus sheds losses, Rapyd gains the emerging-markets reach an IPO story needs.
Card acquiring in LatAm and Europe fills the one gap its 1,200 local payment methods could not cover.
What can be applied
In regulated markets, licences are the asset: buying a compliant footprint in dozens of countries at once beats years of per-country applications.
Aftermath
As of 31 July 2023 the deal awaited regulatory clearance; IPO timing remained unspecified — 'timing will be dictated by a range of factors', Shtilman said — and Rapyd planned further acquisitions while valuations were depressed.
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