U.S. fintech firm Kyriba announced it agreed to buy enterprise currency management provider FiREapps. The deal creates a solution for managing global foreign exchange (FX) risk, with data gathering and consolidation, reporting, and analytics.
“The acquisition of FiREapps deepens our commitment to helping senior financial executives be more agile and efficient in managing all types of risk, including FX exposures,” said Kyriba CEO Jean-Luc Robert.
The FX market is one of the largest financial markets in the world, and has become increasingly volatile due to geo-political events such as Brexit and trade wars. According to FiREapps data, global corporations lost at least $39 billion to currency movements during the first half of 2018, up from $14 billion during the same period the year before.
“FX volatility is a major strategic challenge for treasury organizations,” Kevin Permenter, a senior research analyst for enterprise applications at IDC, said in a statement. “Financial leaders doing business in multiple countries should be looking to adopt a more holistic approach to their global risk management strategies.”
Jean-Luc Robert
FiREapps CEO Wolfgang Koester said there has been market demand for a single-vendor product that would allow companies to manage the entire breadth of FX currency exposure.
“By joining with Kyriba, we fill that gap with a highly differentiated solution, while also aligning with world-class capabilities for cash and risk management, payments, working capital optimization, and more,” he said.
Kyriba was founded in San Diego in 2003. It raised $23 million in 2016 and $45 million in 2017 when it moved its headquarters to New York. In March 2018, Kyriba announced it was partnering with BlackRock on a service that would allow that company’s customers to move cash to BlackRock money market funds as interest rates began to rise.
Kyriba and FiREapps did not disclose the specific terms of the acquisition.