Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company, has acquired Sertifi, a vertical software and payments platform digitizing hospitality-specific workflows and associated payments.
This deal is expected to build on Flywire’s existing travel payments business by adding a new product category that has scaled adoption among some of the world’s largest hotel brands.
Sertifi’s hospitality-specific integrations provide Flywire with immediate access to new subsegments of the global travel industry, and they are expected to create additional value for Flywire’s extensive client roster. And Sertifi has a track record of digitizing hotels’ workflows around events and group booking sales, and a solution that Flywire is expected to scale internationally by leveraging the strength of Flywire’s global go-to-market and partnership expertise worldwide. Flywire acquired Sertifi for $330 million, funded by cash and debt.
Sertifi offers a SaaS platform for the hotel and hospitality industry that empowers both global brands – like Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt – and luxury independent hotels – like the Sage Hospitality Group and the Corinthia Hotel, London – to efficiently and securely sign contracts, exchange payment details in an industry-compliant way, and complete payments with their customers.
Sertifi does this via deep integrations with leading Catering and Property Management Systems such as Amadeus’s Delphi, Salesforce, Oracle’s OPERA Cloud and OPERA 5, and Infor. And Sertifi brings nearly two decades of experience in the hospitality and travel space and a diverse client base that spans 20,000 unique hospitality locations.
Sertifi executed on a unique opportunity in hotel workflows to put itself at the nexus of these powerful trends and capitalize on the secular growth in event bookings. The company’s solution simplifies and streamlines event contracting, group bookings, and their associated payments, enabling hotel sales staff to sell faster and deliver a better level of service to their consumers.
Sertifi’s deep integrations into the hotel Property Management Systems place it in a unique position to act simultaneously as a revenue-maximizing tool and partner for more innovation to hotel operators everywhere. And Flywire’s Travel leadership has developed leading direct distribution capabilities that could accelerate adoption of the Sertifi solution by hotels internationally.
Sertifi is expected to grow faster than Flywire’s company average, similar to its existing, fast-growing travel business. And Flywire expects Sertifi to add about $35 million to $40 million of revenue with gross margins similar to those of Flywire in FY 2025.
On the bottom line, Flywire expects Sertifi to have positive Adjusted EBITDA, however the anticipated margin percentage will be lower than Flywire’s overall Adjusted EBITDA margin, especially as Flywire expects to invest to grow the combined business for the future.
KEY QUOTE:
“The acquisition of Sertifi represents an exciting next phase of growth for our Travel vertical, where our deep industry expertise and global footprint continue to be key differentiators. By expanding into a large new subsegment of the hospitality industry with strong ecosystem alignment, and gaining a software solution in the early stages of its payments monetization journey, we are unlocking new growth and innovation opportunities for Flywire.”
— Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire
