Rapyd continues shopping, picks up Hong Kong-based entrepreneur economy services portal NEAT

London-based digital payments infrastructure provider Rapyd has acquired NEAT in order to expand its SMB global trade services. With the purchase, Rapyd now has access to Neat’s entire catalogue of services, capabilities, and perhaps most importantly, licenses, including the ability to incorporate in Hong Kong, establish business accounts, credit cards, and offer payments services all from a single platform. The financial details of the acquisition remain undisclosed.

Hong Kong, has long been heralded as the financial gateway to mainland China and is often the first port of call to any enterprise seeking to conduct business in the area. With NEAT, SMBs enjoy the same benefits as their corporate counterparts and can get up and running in China via a 15 minute, online application process. The service eschews the mountains of paperwork, mandatory travel, inflated fees, high exchange rates, large minimum balances, or lengthy waiting times often associated with incorporating in a foreign country.

Starting out as a mobile payments company in 2016, Rapyd has rapidly developed into a service far beyond its origins. Effectively, Rapyd powers global organisations including Ikea and Uber with local and cross-border payment options. The firm utilises a network of over 900 payment methods in over 200 countries, and grants customers access to markets harder, better, faster, stronger.

“Completing the acquisition of NEAT represents a significant step forward in expanding our platform's global capabilities for small and medium businesses,” commented Rapyd co-founder and CEO Arik Shtilman. “As SMBs have evolved into increasingly complex and ambitious enterprises, the tools they require must advance as well in order to keep pace with the demands of this new wave of ‘micro-multinationals’. We will continue to add more tools to our network in order to continue to support these growing businesses.”

The NEAT acquisition arrives just six months since Rapyd’s $300 million funding round in which they indicated that more acquisitions were on the way, having acquired Iceland’s Valitor for $100 million in July of last year. And if my hunches are right, this won’t be the last purchase on Rapyd’s global shopping spree.