Flywire, a high-growth vertical payments company recently revealed that it has acquired Simplee, a leading healthcare technology platform, to optimize the digital payments and patient engagement experience in healthcare as part of its efforts to scale its global payments services.
The acquisition boosts Flywire’s growing healthcare payments business and boosts its market share. Flywire also revealed its latest investment round dubbed Series E worth $120 million which is led by Goldman Sachs and contributes to Flywire’s strong balance sheet while providing additional capital to support the company’s vision to digitize payments across its key verticals, including education, healthcare, and travel sectors.
As per the report from Boston Consulting Group, global payments revenue is expected to grow at a 5.9% CAGR from 2019-2028 to become a $2.5 trillion industry by 2028 bolstered by newly developed digital capabilities. But, the payment experience across many industries such as healthcare is still riddled with inefficiencies and poorly integrated point solutions resulting in increasing financial losses.
A CMS statement mentioned that Exacerbated high healthcare costs resulted in a secular trend leading towards high-deductible health plans. It also stated that healthcare patients in the United States will be responsible for $365.5 BN in out-of-pocket healthcare spend every year, which presents Flywire with a market opportunity that is about 70% of the size of the entire U.S. e-commerce spend.
Flywire’s acquisition of Simplee is aimed at accelerating the digitization of payments to address the challenges around patient engagement as well as healthcare finance and affordability which are present in the current and foreseeable future.
Both patients and providers will now be empowered to settle payment faster and on their own terms via the combination of Flywire’s high-tech platform for providers with Simplee’s consumer-first paths to payment. The merged entity will now power four of the top ten US healthcare systems and process more than $10 billion in patient payments per year.
With the inclusion of funds from Series E funding round mentioned above which is expected to will support Flywire’s ongoing investment in its multi-vertical strategy the company’s total capital investment stands at approximately $260 million. Tiger Management and Adage Capital Management also joined the round as new investors with participation from existing investors.
“Flywire is uniquely built on a global payments network, which is the cornerstone of how we move billions of dollars across 200+ countries and 150 currencies, and an industry-leading payments platform”, said Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire. “This digital foundation enables us to develop vertical-specific applications that make payments more efficient and cost-effective for our global clients. The Simplee acquisition improves patient engagement and healthcare affordability and extends these capabilities to a broader customer base.”
“We are thrilled to lead the Series E round for Flywire”, said Ashwin Gupta, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division. “They bring together a unique blend of a payments network, platform, and vertical-specific solutions to completely digitize the payments experience for their clients across industries. We look forward to continuing to help accelerate Flywire’s growth.”
