Richard White, the Sydney-based billionaire founder of ASX-listed freight logistics company WiseTech Global, has acquired recently delisted data services company Kyckr.
The deal is worth approximately $43.5 million and was made through White’s personal investment vehicle RealWise KYK AV Pty Ltd.
Kyckr delivers real-time Know Your Customer (KYC/KYB) and Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) data from trusted, legally authoritative sources to businesses to help them mitigate the risks associated with counterparty relationships when it comes to fraud, money laundering and financial crime, as well as commercial risks, reducing regulatory and commercial costs.
Now headquartered in London and Ireland, the former Australian regtech startup was listed on ASX in 2016 and was delisted in November last year.
White first backed Kyckr in September 2019 as an ASX public company, taking a 19.6% stake for $5.2 million. That saw its share price rise 90% to above $0.20 cents, but since the start of 2020, Kyckr’s share price has languished below $0.10 cents, at $0.079 when it was delisted on Nov. 7. White upped his ante as he earned $629,000 in stock at $0.055 per share last May.
While WiseTech has been in an acquisition mode for the past few years and this deal is in line with its playing field, White has also been busy as an investor in several technology companies, including local ventures Songtradr, Espresso Displays and Genics.
White said Kyckr addresses an important issue for companies trading internationally.
“Companies today operate in an increasingly interconnected global marketplace, where compliance with laws and regulations related to anti-money laundering, sanctions and an ever-expanding list of financial crime typologies has become increasingly risky, complex, time consuming and costly. ” he said.
“I see in Kyckr the opportunity to replace manual processes and aggregate real-time data from various sources to provide a scalable, reliable, highly compliant and cost-effective KYC/KYB/UBO technology platform solution, in the same way that CargoWise from WiseTech multiple single-point legacy systems in the complex and fragmented global logistics industry with integrated global technology that increases productivity, reduces compliance risk and facilitates planning, visualization and control.”
Kyckr’s UK-based CEO, sIan Henderson, said they are pleased with White’s continued strategic guidance and support.
“We are embarking on an exciting evolution of our powerful offering to broaden its scope by building an integrated global software solution that enables companies to navigate the highly complex and dynamic compliance and counterparty risk management challenges they face in an increasingly interconnected and digital market. ” he said.
