糖心视频

There are startups that money can’t buy. For everyone else, there’s Mastercard.

On Tuesday, credit card giant announced the completion of its previously announced acquisition of , a global payments company 鈥渨ith significant cross-border network reach.鈥�

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

Founded in 1988, Transfast is hardly a startup. Indeed, the company is older than a portion of the current Crunchbase News staff. Crunchbase data is a , but it does have two recorded rounds, and . So we can infer from its fundraising activity that the firm鈥檚 pace of activity in recent years was likely high.

Details surrounding its most recent deal aside, the transaction prompted us to take a closer look at the credit card giant鈥檚 historical M&A activity. What we found is that the company has announced four acquisitions this year. That鈥檚 up from just one in 2018.

That pace of change was worth a closer look. Let鈥檚 see what firms MasterCard has bought, and when.

A History of Deals

Since 2009, MasterCard has made , according to its Crunchbase profile. That means one-fourth of its total acquisitions have taken place this year alone.

Here鈥檚 a chart of the firm鈥檚 deals since 2010, mirroring the time period of our recent look at rival 痴颈蝉补鈥檚 own pace of acquisitions:

A few things to discuss. First, we鈥檙e intrigued by Mastercard鈥檚 as a 鈥渢echnology company in the global payments industry.鈥� Every company wants to be a tech company in 2019, just as firms wanted to paint themselves with the .com brush back in the 2000-era. The reason why is somewhat pedestrian: tech companies can command price multiples that other industries cannot. And if you are MasterCard, even a slightly higher multiple can mean billions in market cap.

Second, the company did not reveal financial terms of most of the deals. But the uptick in buying is notable nonetheless.

The fact that MasterCard does not disclose prices may be more a function of its own size (a market cap of over $275 billion) than the size of deals; public companies only have to disclose information on deals that are material. It鈥檚 hard to reach material deal size when the acquiring company is that large.

Still, we do know some prices. In May, MasterCard picked up , a New York-based SaaS payments platform, for $57 million. Transactis had raised since its inception in 2007, according to its Crunchbase profile. That means that its exit wasn鈥檛 a win for its investors or employees, but landing at MasterCard is far from the worst ending for a startup.

And in April, MasterCard acquired Austin fintech startup for an undisclosed sum. Vyze鈥檚 technology, according to the, 鈥渁llows retail consumers to apply for a loan while standing in the checkout line.鈥� Since it was founded in 2008, Vyze had raised in venture funding, according to its Crunchbase profile.

(As a general note, when a company has raised several rounds of venture capital, it reaches a scale that implies some sort of material buy; with over $45 million in invested capital, Vyze was probably of decent size. It鈥檚 not a hard rule, but the more venture capital a startup has raised, generally speaking the larger the deal is to acquire it.)

Lastly, in March, MasterCard announced it was buying Canada鈥檚 , a 鈥渃ollaboration-based tech services company鈥� that had raised over its 14-year lifetime.

What About Investing?

MasterCard has also (across 46 rounds) over the years, leading at least , according to its Crunchbase profile. This year alone, it鈥檚 put money into five companies, including and African ecommerce startup .

The trend of large credit card companies buying smaller shops is picking up. Earlier this year, we took a look at recent buys, as well as American Express鈥� latest M&A activity.

Given that we are seeing an increased pace of buying startups by Visa, American Express and MasterCard, it鈥檚 not impossible to guess that other related players are going to pick up the pace of buying themselves. This is the sort of mid-sized startup buying that can provide material liquidity when measured in aggregate.

For now, we have the start of a trend. If the trio of credit card companies keep it up, we could have something more.

Illustration: