JPMorgan Chase is to buy Silicon Valley-based WePay to help its small business clients marry software with payments.
Founded in 2008, WePay delivers payments-as-a-service APIs for simple onboarding and activation of payments, without impacting the user experience designed by developers.
“With WePay, Chase is taking the work out of payments for both our business clients and the software providers who serve them,” says Matt Kane, CEO of Chase Merchant Services. "We are powering payments for growth, so businesses can accept payments instantly, get paid faster, and never lose a sale. And we’ll give ISVs a payment facilitator-like experience without the overhead or increased fraud risk.”
While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reports a price slightly north of the $220 million valuation that WePay achieved in a 2015 fundraising.
Upon closing, WePay and its employees will operate as Chase's payments innovation incubator in Silicon Valley.
The deal is the latest in a string of collaborations and partnerships cemented by JPMorgan in the fintech payment space, following last month's investment in Bill.om and an earlier partnership struck with OnDeck.