Thinking Capital Finance Corp., a digital lender to small businesses, has completed the acquisition of Ario, a finance-as-a-service technology platform.
The acquisition, it said, allows it to better support Canadian small businesses through their recovery and renewed growth from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In an economy that became substantially more digital over the last months, the Ario transaction will allow us to build on a cutting-edge cloud-based financial platform, designed from the ground up to serve small businesses,” said Stephane Marceau, CEO of Thinking Capital.
The acquisition of Ario, the company added, is a critical enabler to help Thinking Capital accelerate its FinTech vision in the Canadian marketplace. The Ario platform uses proprietary data and algorithms to provide digital lending and cashflow management offerings for small businesses.
Purpose Financial, the parent company of Thinking Capital, was an investor in Ario prior to this transaction.
“We invested in Ario back in 2017 and acquired Thinking Capital in 2018,” said company CEO Som Seif. “Both of these transactions had the goal of supporting Canada’s small business community by creating a financial service experience built around the SMB journey.
“Bringing the two companies together will strengthen our ability to achieve our mission and empower even more Canadian small businesses to achieve great success.”
In recent months, Thinking Capital reached the $1 billion mark of funding provided to Canadian small businesses.
“This last year has been challenging for many of the entrepreneurs we serve,” said Marceau. “Nonetheless, over 80% of those we worked with through payment deferral plans since COVID hit, are now back on normal plans and rebuilding their business, some of them thriving in new ways.”
