Exciting news was announced as Kyckr, an Irish-founded fintech, has been acquired by Australian billionaire Richard White in a deal worth AUS $43.5 million (€28 million).
The regulatory compliance firm, founded in 2007 in Waterford by entrepreneur Rob Leslie, Ben Cronin, John Murray, and Richard Wood, raised AUS$5 million (€3 million) after listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
Kyckr offers 'know your business' compliance services to clients in industries that are prone to fraud and money laundering.
White, the founder of WiseTech, a leading Australian developer and provider of logistics software solutions, acquired the company through his personal investment vehicle RealWise.
The billionaire has long been a supporter of Kyckr, which was delisted from the ASX late last year.
He owns 40% of WiseTech, one of the most valuable technology companies on the Sydney Stock Exchange.
WiseTech's customers include over 18,000 logistics companies from more than 165 countries, including 24 of the top 25 global freight forwarders.
"Today's businesses operate in an increasingly interconnected global marketplace, where compliance with anti-money laundering laws and regulations, sanctions, and an ever-expanding list of financial crime typologies is becoming increasingly high-risk, complex, time-consuming, and costly," White said.
Leslie previously founded Sedicii, which provides identity and security solutions to prevent financial crime, in addition to Kyckr, which he led. In 2015, the World Economic Forum named the company one of its most promising technology pioneers.
Leslie recently co-founded Nillion, a company that has created a novel cryptographic protocol. The protocol introduces a novel approach to decentralised computation and processing, which could serve as the foundation for new Web3 or collaborative applications.
Conrad Whelan, one of Uber's first five employees and the architect of the ride-hailing company's software platform, was named Nillion's founding chief technology officer in May 2022.