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FlyWire acquires Simplee in a major payments industry acquisition led By Goldman Sachs

February 14, 2020
Business Affairs
By Trevor Bromley

According to Boston Consulting Group, global payments revenue is expected to grow at a 5.9% CAGR from 2019 – 2028 to become a $2.5 trillion industry by 2028. Yet payment experiences across many industries like healthcare accelerates financial loss from poorly integrated point solutions.

Against this backdrop, a major healthcare industry acquisition was announced this week by the vertical payments company FlyWire. The company reported the acquisition of Israel-based digital payments and patient engagement company Simplee. Led by Goldman Sachs in a $120 Series E investment round, the acquisition was aimed at strengthening FlyWire's presence in the healthcare payments business and growing its market share by better addressing the challenges around patient engagement as well as healthcare finance and affordability.

Flywire's high-tech platform is expected to dovetail with Simplee's consumer-first paths to payment, better enabling both patients and providers to settle payment faster and on their own terms. The company disclosed that they will provide their service to four of the top ten U.S. healthcare systems, and expects to process more than $10 billion in patient payments per year.

The market opportunity for FlyWire is substantial, given the trend toward ever-higher deductible health plans which put healthcare consumers on the hook for some $365 billion, according to figures from CMS. The company pointed out that this represents a market size of roughly 70% of the size of the entire U.S. e-commerce spend.

FlyWire CEO Mike Massaro said that "Flywire is uniquely built on a global payments network, which is the cornerstone of how we move billions of dollars across 200+ countries and 150 currencies, and an industry-leading payments platform. This digital foundation enables us to develop vertical-specific applications that make payments more efficient and cost-effective for our global clients. The Simplee acquisition improves patient engagement and healthcare affordability and extends these capabilities to a broader customer base."

Ashwin Gupta, managing director at Goldman Sachs' Merchant Banking Division, commented that FlyWire and Simplee "bring together a unique blend of a payments network, platform and vertical-specific solutions to completely digitize the payments experience for their clients across industries. We look forward to continuing to help accelerate Flywire's growth."

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