AvidXchange To Buy FastPay For Media Industry Payments

Accounts payable (AP) platform AvidXchange is partnering with payments automation firm FastPay to advance services to middle-market media companies. FastPay specializes in payments automation solutions for the media industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“FastPay’s expertise and purpose-built set of payments automation solutions for the media industry are what excited us about the potential to have FastPay become a part of AvidXchange,” Michael Praeger, CEO and co-founder of AvidXchange, said in a press release on Monday (July 12). 

Praeger said that AvidXchange looks to collaborate with companies “that service specific verticals across the middle market,” particularly firms that have continually worked to advance technologies that “better the day-to-day finance operations of its customers.”

“This is exactly what FastPay delivers, supported by a very talented team with deep media industry expertise,” he added.

The deal will bring AvidXchange’s automated payments technologies and services to the media space in the U.S.; the companies will work to advance inefficient payment processes across the sector by brands, agencies and media suppliers.

Headquartered in Los Angeles and Boston, FastPay was founded in 2009 and uses proprietary technologies to offer a suite of solutions to over 70,000 media suppliers. 

AvidXchange was launched in 2000 in Charlotte, North Carolina and aims to streamline AP processes and advance automation. The company works with over 7,000 businesses in North America and counts more than 700,000 firms as part of its network, processing in excess of $145 billion in transactions every year.

The combined entity will operate as FastPay, an AvidXchange company, and will be led by Secil Baysal, senior vice president and general manager of media.

This latest deal is followed by AvidXchange’s recent acquisitions of Core Associates in January and BankTEL in August 2019. TimberScan, a technology platform developed by Core Associates prior to the acquisition, is now integrated with AvidPay, according to the press release.

AvidXchange is moving toward an initial public offering (IPO) this year that could give the company a valuation of more than $7 billion. The company had an approximate $2 billion valuation after its April 2020 funding round of $127 million.