The Argentine company that bought the Uruguayan technology company Kona in 2021 became a unicorn. Miguel Santos -founder of Technisys-, sold the company to SoFi Technologies for $1,100, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Santos founded his company more than 20 years ago with the goal of providing digital banking solutions for banks. Since then, Technisys grew steadily, and on Tuesday it was bought by Nasdaq-listed tech giant SoFi. “The project they approached us with is spectacular and accelerates all the plans we already had. They put an amazing offer in front of us”, Santos told Infobae.
The idea is that Technisys continues as an independent company, serving all of its customers but on a larger scale. “I stay in the company,” said the founder. “I’m not going to miss out on such a great opportunity that we have ahead of us.“, he added.
For SoFi Technologies, Technisys is an interesting purchase because it built “an attractive and fast-growing business” with a unique strategic technology that all leading financial services companies will need to keep pace with digital innovation.
“The acquisition of Technisys is an essential component in delivering our digital one-stop-shop experienceSoFi Technologies CEO Anthony Noto said.
According to the definitive merger agreement Technisys shareholders will receive total consideration of 84 million shares of SoFi Technologies common stock. These shares have an aggregate value of $1.1 billion based on the volume-weighted average price of SoFi Technologies common stock for the 20 trading day period ending February 15, 2022.
The impact on Kona
Uruguayans Diego Cibils and Santiago Cotto founded Kona in 2015 as a banktech -artificial intelligence company that joins banks to innovate customer experiences-.
On March 15, 2021, the Uruguayan company was sold to Technisys. Although the sale of the Uruguayan technology company was total, the team remained the same, as well as their contracts and their clients. “The difference is that now we have the support of a larger company that will allow us to reach places that we did not reach before.”, Cibils said in an interview with El Observador when he sold his company.
Now that Technisys has been acquired by SoFi Technologies, Cibils remains in the same line. “This is amazing news”stated to Coffee & Business. Now, the Kona team is positioned within a larger technological group, so the possibility of bringing the company’s services to more clients is greater. It is another step in the growth of the company.
“More doors are opening for us to continue fulfilling our objective,” said Cibils.
In this new acquisition, Kona’s partners will be in charge of developing conversational channels in banking. That means they will bring all of the team’s expertise to SoFi Technologies and its extensive client base. “More resources are being added to the unit to be able to execute our vision faster,” Cibils explained.
SoFi Technologies is a company valued at US$ 9,000 million, so its power of arrival is great. For his place within the group, Cibils expects a rapid growth of services offered by Kona partners.
