Tritech Media has announced its final acquisition of the year after buying a 44% holding in commerce and payments technology provider Kinektek.
The acquisition was made by Tritech's subsidiary Crossgate Technologies, a payments technology company. The remainder of shares in Kinektek are held by the founders.
William Kirsh, CEO of Tritech Media, and David de Coning, CEO of Crossgate, will join the board of Kinektek. Crossgate has the option to increase its holding in Kinektek to 50.1%.
Kirsh founded Primedia, SA's second largest media company, before starting media technology company Tritech Media.
Tritech Media has been on a buying spree this year. Earlier this month, the company acquired a 30% stake in KaChing, a locally-developed cashless and ticketless parking app. In October, Tritech Media announced the acquisition of a 20% interest in social transit app and Web site, GoMetro, for an undisclosed amount. During the same month, it also acquired a 35% holding in ValueCard.
In August, the company acquired a 25% holding in real-time location-based technology company ProximityID for an undisclosed amount. Other acquisitions include Geospatial Data Solutions. In April, Tritech Media announced it had acquired a 51% interest in Ionizr, a local provider of real-time proximity advertising technology, for an undisclosed amount. In December last year, the media company acquired a 45% stake in local gaming industry innovator GameZBoost.
Kinektek is the provider of a proprietary commerce platform that enables businesses to automate content distribution and transaction processing across multiple channels. Originally focused on transactional self-service terminals, the firm's Convenient Commerce platform has evolved to support mobile and other online channels.
The company has a range of custom content, including bill payment; purchase of airtime and other prepaid products; redemption of rewards; secure card and wallet loads; credit and debit card dispensing; remittances between Kinektek's self-service kiosks, mobile and online channels; ticketing; FICA verification and account-opening registration.
As a payments technology organisation, Crossgate is focused on providing banks, retailers and other verticals such as mass-transit operators with card products; alternative distribution channels; mobile payment enablement; issuing and processing platforms to manage debit, credit and prepaid programmes; and data analytics.
It supplies loyalty and gift cards to all major retailers in SA, and EMV-standard debit and credit card products to banks.
"Crossgate's Kinektek acquisition is highly complementary to not only Crossgate's current activities but also several of its innovations which are soon to be launched," says Kirsh.
"We view the opportunity for loyalty solutions as another touch point between a corporate and the consumer. Kinektek's proprietary technology will enable us as South Africa's only turnkey corporate loyalty solutions provider to deliver an additional channel for loyalty through Kinektek's commerce platform."
Based in Cape Town, Kinektek is operational in SA, Namibia and Tanzania. Having processed well over R3 billion's worth of transactions to date and over 200 000 transactions per month, the platform demonstrated it can support even the largest implementations, it says.
"We are very excited to now have Kinektek as part of our business, adding a complementary commerce platform and an attractive new channel for our clients to incorporate into their overall customer-facing plans," says David de Coning, CEO of Crossgate.
"It is the intention to extend Kinektek's reach into Africa and further afield internationally through Crossgate's strategic relationship with global market leader ABCorp, which holds 35% in Crossgate."
Matthew Slaven, founder and CEO of Kinektek, says: "Our platform delivers the simple transactional and content distribution capabilities to businesses that require growth and relevance in our ever-increasingly digital world. We help them overcome difficulties with integration utilising our suite of services, and accordingly, clients can maintain their focus on their products and customers.
"Crossgate, Tritech Media and ABCorp help position Kinektek as an attractive option for banks and retailers to include in their overall digital channel strategy for content marketing and distribution. The depth and breadth of Tritech Media's businesses will also create further opportunity for additional synergies. This is great news for us, our clients and their customers."
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