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Up until about six months ago, taking outside capital was not something we were interested in considering. We did what we wanted, how we wanted, whenever we wanted, and we were having a great time and experiencing a lot of success. However, with our growth, we were increasingly bumping up against constraints that limited our ability to provide both the services and quality our customers desired (and that we were committed to providing). We also started to piece the puzzle together as to what we thought would happen in our industry in the next 3-5 years. We began to wonder if our bootstrapping origins had served their purposes and if we should now consider raising money. There were two things in particular that rose to the surface. First, providing a merchant account is core to our business, and it’s something that creates a lot of risk for the company. As we’ve grown, the size of merchants we work with has increased (and so have their risk profiles). We wanted to continue to provide these services with the quality levels we desired. In order to do that, we needed a stronger balance sheet and someone with deep pockets. Second, we believe that the payments industry is undergoing a transformative process as significant as what occurred with Netflix and Blockbuster. With this change, there will be compelling opportunities for us to serve our customers in better ways and create more value then ever before. We’ll need more resources to do this.
