Cash register closed: Till Payments changes hands for meagre sum

afr.com:

It’s game over for fintech Till Payments and its bigwig backers.

Street Talk understands Canadian payments processor Nuvei is set to buy the struggling payments processor – once one of Australia’s hottest start-ups, valued at $500 million – for $47 million.

This will wipe out equity holders – a who’s who of Australian equity capital markets and corporate Australia. Only Series D investors are expected to see any money again, the largest of whom is understood to be Theo Koundouris – managing director of Supabarn, a family-owned Canberra supermarket chain that is also a Till Payments customer.

You win some, you lose some: former Till Payments CEO Shadi Haddad and CTO Vinay Rao. James Brickwood

The payments company attracted a string of high-profile backers during happier times including Caledonia’s Will Vicars, pubs baron Bruce Mathieson, Ord Minnett boss Karl Morris, Paradice Investment Management’s David Paradice and a handful of senior bankers at Barrenjoey Capital Partners. Sources said several UBS employees (and some of their clients) invested when blocks baron George Kanaan was still in Chifley Tower. He’s since moved his talents to Barrenjoey as head of cash equities.

Till’s latest accounts paint a grim picture of the last few years. As reported by The Australian Financial Review, the company posted an after-tax loss of almost $141 million in financial year 2022. Revenues rose 253 per cent to $51.2 million, but expenses grew faster, widening the loss from $136 million recorded one year earlier.

The accounts showed Till had $36 million in cash, and had burnt through $55 million on day-to-day operations in 12 months. It was already cutting costs by around $8 million a year, but warned that there was “material