Yesterday, fintech company Optimized Payments announced their acquisition of Paul Larsen Consulting, a New York-based firm with decades of experience in the payments industry. In the announcement, Optimized Payments said the acquisition is a strategic move to position the company as “the global leader in payment data services and analytics.”
“We see strong secular growth in the subscription economy and unique needs arising from recurring payments–from minimizing authorization declines to maximizing customer lifetime value. “Given PLC’s exclusive focus on this segment combined with their PULSE analytics platform, we saw a natural strategic fit to integrate and expand our offerings,” said Anand Goel, Optimized Payments founder and CEO.
Strategic acquisition
By combining Optimized Payments’ SaaS analytics platform with Paul Larsen Consulting’s PULSE technology, the combined company will provide merchants with a single platform to consolidate their payment data from multiple vendors.
“We found tremendous synergies with Paul Larsen Consulting from a passion to serving clients to helping customers maximize revenue and decrease costs through sophisticated and actionable payment analytics. We are thrilled to have Paul and his team along with a portfolio of world-class clients like AARP, NFL, NBA, Beachbody, and Shutterstock join Optimized,” said Goel.
PLC team to join Optimized Payments
Paul Larsen Consulting’s entire leadership team – Paul Larsen, John Sullivan, Melanie Stout Manuel and Sharon Gross – and their support staff and development team will join Optimized Payments.
“PLC has taken this step in confident belief that Optimized Payments will make a hefty contribution toward elevating our customers’ success. We dug deep into each other’s culture, disciplines, and toolbox, mutually concluding that we are aligned in purpose and complementary in expertise, with just the right amount of overlap to deliver added benefits to each other’s clients. We are more committed and passionate than ever to earning, building, and keeping our customers’ trust, and we eagerly look forward to deepening, strengthening, and broadening each customer relationship,” said Paul Larsen, Founder and Managing Partner of Paul Larsen Consulting.
Melanie Stout Manuel, head of recurring services, also commented on the acquisition.
“PLC has helped hundreds of merchants navigate the unique challenges of recurring payments for 18 years. The recent expansion and evolution of the payments landscape has created the perfect opportunity for PLC to join forces with Optimized Payments. We are excited to combine our decades of expertise and technology to offer the best-in-class payments analytics to the marketplace,” Stout Manuel said.
Optimized Payments works with enterprise merchants and payment facilitators to help them streamline and optimize the cost of electronic payments through the use of analytics, data services and customized consulting. Their services support merchants in managing chargebacks and declines while generating near real-time reporting and analyses, reducing costs and driving revenue. So far, Optimized Payments has saved their clients more than $400 million.
Though they serve a variety of industries, some of their industries include retail, ecommerce, grocery, insurance, telecom, media, hospitality and healthcare. Optimized Payments current and past clients include Tiffany & Co., Hermes, Publix, NCO, Priceline, The Paper Store, Gardner Business Media, Expedia, Family Christian, ShopRite, Waste Management, Delta Dental, AutoNation, The Cheesecake Factor, Staples, Anthem, Hyatt, Albertsons and more.
Focused on reducing involuntary churn, increasing lifetime value and reducing processing costs, Paul Larsen Consulting has an equally impressive client list of more than 450 card-not-present, recurring revenue merchants. Current and past clients including BarkBox, Candy Club, Constant Contact, Consumer Reports, Dollar Shave Club, Dow Jones/WSJ, Financial Times, Hulu, LifeLock, Match, Newsweek, Pandora, Roku, Ipsy, Motley Fool and others.
Insider Take
This is BIG news in the payments world, particularly for the hundreds of clients that have worked with either Optimized Payments or Paul Larsen Consulting in the past. The combination of these two companies, their vast experience, client portfolios, and data services and analytics tools will propel them forward faster than either company could alone. It sounds like the companies are well aligned internally as well, which will help for a smooth transition as the PLC team joins Optimized Payments for the company’s next chapter.
[Editor’s Note: We have partnered with Paul Larsen Consulting for years as an expert in the payments industry. They have been an educational partner and event sponsor for Subscription Insider.]
