![]() ![]() “We can be frugal without being heartless,” Mikulski said in a speech on the Senate floor last month when she became chairwoman of the chamber’s Appropriations Committee. This may help her continue to shield her constituents and causes from the cold, hard politics of austerity gripping Washington. Now, as the new head of the Senate committee that helps make government spending decisions, Mikulski will be one of the most powerful players in Congress at time when an axe hangs over the national budget. She has, for example, marshaled funds to clean up polluted waterways and improve schools in poor neighborhoods nationwide. Her long record of securing “earmarks” - the practice of budgeting money for specific projects that has fallen into disfavor in Washington - also reveals a set of priorities that has made her one of America’s most liberal lawmakers. Known for years as a champion of so-called pork-barrel politics, Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski has steered government money to many pet projects, from astronomy research to new buildings on military bases, protecting federal agency operations in her home state. Senate during the second session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina September 5, 2012. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) stands at the podium flanked by eight other Democratic female members of the U.S. The investment followed a $600 million funding round for Stripe Inc. Plaid Inc., which makes software that helps connect users’ bank accounts to services such as mobile payment apps, raised $425 million at a reported $13 billion-plus valuation last year. Alongside Insight Partners and New Enterprise Associates, another investor set to win from the acquisition is PayPal Holdings Inc., which bought a stake in Divvy earlier this year at a $1.6 billion valuation.ĭivvy’s lucrative exit is likely to add to the already strong investor enthusiasm around the financial technology sector. The deal’s $2.5 billion price tag is more than four times higher than the total amount of funding Divvy has raised to date. The startup’s fast growth explains the premium has agreed to pay. told shareholders that Divvy’s top line roughly doubled year-over-year in the 12 months ended in March. Moreover, that revenue figure is growing fast. The new sales opportunities the company hopes to unlock through the transaction will add to the approximately $100 million in annualized recurring revenue Divvy already generates. To drive additional growth, will also look at offering Divvy to businesses outside the U.S. ![]() In its shareholder presentation about the acquisition, highlighted an opportunity to sell the Divvy service to its more than 115,000 existing customers and at the same time promote its own corporate finance platform to Divvy’s 7,000-plus clients. The company expects the product benefits to translate into new revenue. “Customers will be able to manage and have real-time insight into all their B2B spend,” Chief Executive Officer René Lacerte (pictured, left, with Divvy counterpart Blake Murray) explained in a blog post. provides a single pane of glass for paying suppliers and sending invoices that, with the addition of Divvy’s technology, will also enable businesses to manage corporate credit cards in the same place. Divvy’s core differentiators are that it promises to make the process of applying to corporate credit cards easier and offers an expense reporting app to reduce the amount of manual data entry employees must perform.įor, the rationale behind the acquisition is that it will allow businesses to make their finance operations more centralized. It sells a cloud service of the same name that companies can use to provide their employees with corporate credit cards for work-related expenses. The platform has a client base of more than 115,000 businesses, mostly in the small and midsized categories.ĭivvy is a Utah-based startup backed by $417 million in funding from Insight Partners, New Enterprise Associates and others. San Jose, California-based provides a platform that companies use to manage payments to suppliers and send invoices to their customers. sees opportunities for even further growth in the future by expanding Divvy’s platform internationally. In a shareholder presentation, the company explained that it expects Divvy to provide a return on the investment by more than doubling its U.S. Publicly traded said on Thursday that it’s financing the transaction with $625 million in cash and $1.875 billion worth of common stock. Corporate finance software provider LLC has signed a $2.5 billion deal to acquire DivvyPay Inc., better known as Divvy, whose cloud service enables companies to issue business credit cards to their employees.
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