Certify, Chrome River merge in $1B transaction

Travel expense management providers Certify and Chrome River Technologies are merging, creating a company with more than 11,000 customers in more than 100 countries.

The companies say the transaction is valued at more than $1 billion. K1 Investment Management will hold a majority stake in the combined organization, while existing shareholders, including the companies’ founders and Bain Capital Ventures, will retain a minority interest.

“Over the past 11 years, Chrome River has established itself as the leader for global enterprises looking for sophisticated, highly scalable, expense and invoice management software,” says Alan Rich, co-founder and CEO of Chrome River.

“Combining our resources with those of Certify, we can continue toward our goal of delivering the most innovative and agile solutions on the market. I look forward to the combined organization continuing to earn an even greater share of a rapidly growing industry.”

Initially, Certify and Chrome River will operate independently and with separate management teams.

The companies say the merger will allow them to expedite investments in areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, analytics and reporting.

“By bringing together Chrome River’s strengths in large enterprise and Certify’s strengths in mid-market and SMB [small- and medium-size businesses], organizations of all sizes have the choice of technology suited to their specific requirements, rather than being forced to use a single product,” says Bob Neveu, co-founder and CEO of Certify.

“With increased financial resources, the combined organization will have an even stronger focus on innovation, ensuring our customers will continue to optimize their travel, expense and invoice automation technology investments.”

Chrome River says it provides travel, expense and invoice automation solutions to more than two million business travelers from more than 1,000 organizations around the world.

Certify says it serves more than 10,000 organizations with travel, expense and invoice management software through its brands that included Certify, Nexonia, Tallie, Abacus and Captio.