Australian billionaire Richard White acquires Waterford-founded KYC specialist Kyckr
Kyckr a technology company – founded in Arclabs, Waterford and a member of the Ireland South East Financial Services Cluster – that provides corporations with authoritative real-time data on potential and existing customers and suppliers, has agreed to be acquired by Richard White, an Australian technology entrepreneur. The regulatory compliance company, which was founded by entrepreneur Rob Leslie, Ben Cronin, John Murray and Richard Wood in Waterford in 2007, raised AUS$5 million (€3 million) after listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) six years ago. White, who founded Australian technology company WiseTech Global in 1994, will acquire the company via his personal investment vehicle RealWise KYK AV Pty Ltd. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Kyckr CEO Ian Henderson said:
“The Kyckr team is delighted to have the strategic guidance, support, and vision that successful tech-entrepreneur and founder Richard White provides. We are embarking upon an exciting evolution of our powerful offering to broaden its scope by building an integrated global software solution to enable businesses to navigate the highly complex and dynamic compliance and counterparty risk challenges that they face in an increasingly interconnected and digital marketplace.”
Kyckr specializes in providing businesses with real-time access to aggregated corporate Know Your Customer/Know Your Business (KYC/KYB) and Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) data from more than 300 company registries and primary sources worldwide. This reach enables Kyckr to conduct real-time due diligence on more than 120 million companies around the globe. White noted that this capacity was especially important in a world with ever-expanding compliance laws and regulations on one hand and innovative financial criminals on the other. He described the contemporary challenge of KYC/KYB compliance as “increasingly high-risk, complex, time-consuming, and costly.”
White’s WiseTech Global bills itself as the “operating system for global logistics.” In a statement, White compared Kyckr’s ability to automate manual processes and aggregate data from real-time sources to the way WiseTech’s CargoWise solution has replaced legacy logistics systems with integrated technology. Both solutions, White indicated, are designed to “drive productivity, reduce compliance risk, and facilitate planning, visualization, and control.”
Kyckr has raised more than $18 million in funding to date. The company maintains offices in the U.K., Ireland, and Australia.
ArcLabs Research and Incubation Centre, Waterford, where Kyckr was founded, is a purposely built, fully serviced building providing close to 1300 sq. m of industrial and commercial space dedicated to the growth of young knowledge-based companies. Its goal is to accelerate the development of start-up companies through a comprehensive combination of infrastructure, business support services and specialised resources before and during their foundation.
Ireland South East Financial Services Cluster is an enterprise led cluster initiative funded by five local authorities in the region: Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford. The cluster aims to bond the traditional and emerging financial services and FinTech community to engage with peers, partner, bounce ideas, look for tips and hints, get and give mentorship.
