Thompson Investments Steps in to Acquire Troubled Powa Technologies

Powa Technologies Ltd., the troubled startup behind PowaTag and the PowaPOS line of mobile point-of-sale gear, is being acquired by Thompson Investments, according to a terse announcement released late Friday. No terms were released.

Before Thompson stepped in, London-based Powa Technologies had been reported to be close to appointing management consultancy Deloitte to administer the firm. Powa had reportedly been late with payments to employees and suppliers. London-based Powa, which has a staff of more than 300 employees worldwide and runs major operations in the U.S., offers three payments services, including PowaWeb for online payments processing in addition to PowaTag and mPowa.

“Powa is an exciting business driven [by] an extraordinary entrepreneur with great vision,” said Richard Thompson, the head of Thompson Investments, in a statement. “PowaTag in particular is extremely exciting and I have great faith in the future of the business and its experienced and talented management team. I am looking forward to building on the momentum that they have created over the last two years.”

Powa’s founder, long-time London entrepreneur Dan Wagner, also issued this statement on the deal: “Pre-revenue tech start-ups need a steady source of capital. The market conditions in recent months have had a significant impact on capital-raising activities across the tech sector and others. Nevertheless, we have found in Richard a committed investor who is working with the senior-management team and understands the needs of the current business. Myself and my senior management team would like to reassure all customers and partners that we continue to trade as normal and they will be unaffected by the current re-structuring.”

Founded in 2007, Powa has raised $176.7 million in three funding rounds since 2013, the latest of which was an $80 million Series C round in November 2014 led by Wellington Management. The private company’s last valuation, $2.7 billion, was rich enough to rank it second among the so-called unicorns involved in the payments industry, behind only Stripe at $5 billion. Unicorns are privately held tech startups valued at $1 billion or more.