Bluefin announced today that Goldman Sachs Specialty Lending Group led a debt and equity growth financing in the company, joining existing investors Financial Partners, which is the private equity group for Napier Park Global Capital, and Camden Partners.
Goldman Sachs Specialty Lending Group (“GSSLG”), founded in 2004, operates as the middle market financing and investing platform within The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GSSLG’s focus is on delivering flexible, reliable capital to the middle-market while leveraging the firm-wide resources of Goldman Sachs. GSSLG lends and invests Goldman Sachs’ capital through stand-alone first-line, second-line, uni-tranche and junior capital investments directly to mid-sized companies across the United States and Canada.
Bluefin specializes in developing secure payment technology that protects consumer cardholder data, protects the corporate brand, and reduces Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) scope and compliance. In March 2014, Bluefin became the first company in North America to receive PCI validation for a Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) Solution, PayConex P2PE. PayConex P2PE encrypts cardholder data within the point of entry, preventing clear-text cardholder data from being available in an organization’s system and network.
“Bluefin is emerging as a leader in payment security solutions,” said Manu Rana, Partner at Financial Partners, the company’s largest shareholder. “With the consistent news on data breaches, the security of consumer and corporate data is of the utmost importance to all companies. We see Bluefin as an innovator paving the way in data encryption and security.”
Bluefin will use proceeds from the funding to bolster its investment in Security Solutions. In addition to P2PE being available through the company’s PayConex gateway, Bluefin introduced Decryptx in November 2014. Decryptx, the company’s Decryption as a Service (DaaS) product, enables P2PE for Enterprises and Tier 1 Merchants with no change to the businesses’ current acquiring relationship and no integration to the PayConex gateway required.
“This growth financing is a seminal event for Bluefin as it follows the launch of Decryptx and validation of its P2PE solution earlier this year,” said Shane Kim, Partner at Camden Partners. “We are pleased to be invested with John Perry for a second time and excited about the high quality investor base that the team has been able to attract.”
“We are delighted to welcome GSSLG as our new capital provider,” said John M. Perry, CEO of Bluefin. “Their knowledge and experience will enable us to continue building our business and our security products, and expand our reach globally. We are looking forward to expanding our reach with GSSLG’s capital and support.”