After Investment and Licensing Trials, Visa To Buy TrialPay Outright

Visa Inc. on Friday reported that it had signed a definitive agreement to buy privately-held TrialPay Inc., provider of an offers platform that connects merchants with consumers through targeted promotions. Visa will integrate TrialPay into its portfolio of services for merchants beyond pure payment processing.

Financial terms of the pending deal, which Visa expects to close by June 30, were not disclosed.

Mountain View, Calif.-based TrialPay was founded in 2006 and the following year introduced what it claims to be the world’s first offer wall—an online page that allows buyers to receive products free if they bought something from other vendors. Since then, TrialPay has expanded onto Facebook, enabled software developers to use digital currency, and is now working on in-store offers.

TrialPay, with a head count of 60, says it has 20,000 merchants and 500 million users in 180 countries, and works on six mobile platforms as well as online.

Visa and TrialPay are no strangers to each other. Visa and two other companies invested $40 million in TrialPay in 2012, and last August Visa licensed TrialPay’s technology platform.

“This acquisition aligns with Visa’s strategy to work more closely with merchants, developing solutions that help them to grow their businesses and build stronger customer relationships,” Ramon Martin, Visa senior vice president of merchant sales and solutions, said in a statement. “TrialPay will strengthen our loyalty and offers platform, which we expect to become a strategic and competitive differentiator that can help merchants build customer loyalty and increase sales in both the digital and physical retail environments.”

Terry Angelos, TrialPay’s co-founder and chief executive, said the company’s relationships with its partners and customers will not change. “As the worlds of commerce and payments continue to merge, combining Visa’s incredible payments footprint with TrialPay’s commerce and offers platform is a tremendous opportunity for us to impact the world on an even greater scale,” Angelos said in a post on TrialPay’s blog. “By fully integrating these platforms, TrialPay and Visa are positioned to deliver better insights to merchants and provide smarter rewards to consumers.”