Cashless payments FinTech Nayax Ltd. has entered into “a binding term sheet” to acquire smart card technology firm On Track Innovations Ltd. for about $4.5 million in cash, according to a joint announcement Thursday (Jan. 20).
“This acquisition is an important step in our plan to gain share in our targeted markets and accelerate our growth opportunities in territories such as Japan,” Yair Nechmad, CEO and chairman of Israel-based Nayax, said in the announcement.
“OTI has an experienced workforce, a high-quality and loyal customer base as well as significant operations in the automatic refueling system market,” he continued. “This transaction supports Nayax’s strategic business plan, as we constantly explore potential acquisitions with complementary technologies that will support our continued growth.”
Nayax’s acquisition of OTI will be completed in two phases, per the announcement. First, Nayax will lend OTI approximately $5.5 million to repay its outstanding debts, which OTI will repay within two years at a 10% annual interest rate.
In the second phase of the acquisition, which is expected within 21 days of signing the loan agreement, OTI will be fully merged into Nayax for $4.5 million.
Related: Unicorn Cashless Payment Firm Nayax Raises Approximately $142 Million In IPO
In May, Nayax raised 462 million shekels (NIS) (about $142 million) in its initial public offering (IPO) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).
In the announcement, TASE CEO Ittai Ben Zeev said that Nayax’s IPO is “the first global offering of a unicorn on TASE, and we are confident that more international companies will follow this path.”
Nayax has about 20,000 clients running point-of-sale (POS) systems in about 50 countries. It accepts about 40 currencies and works with payments networks including Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal, and has more than 500 staffers in 10 global offices.