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The founders of Sydney-based fintech ezyCollect can directly credit the power of artificial intelligence for helping them secure a $66.5 million sale of their business to larger French counterpart Sidetrade.
The deal, which was announced in October by the Euronext Paris-listed group, was triggered after Sidetrade founder and CEO Olivier Novasque was looking to expand the business into the Asia-Pacific region.
According to ezyCollect co-founder and CEO Arjun Singh, Novasque asked Chat GPT to identify the region’s leading “order-to-cash” player – a company that helps businesses to get their invoices paid on time.
After Chat GPT named ezyCollect, Novasque then got the AI assistant to identify and contact the CEO via LinkedIn.
“I got the message in the middle of July, and I normally ignore a lot of these messages,” Singh tells Business News Australia.
“But I felt that, even though it was a large public company, because he was founder and CEO maybe we could have a real conversation.
“There was an instant connection as he has been doing what we do for the past 24 years. It was a match of culture and values.”
Founded in 2014 by Arjun Singh and Raj Kuckreja, ezyCollect operates an accounts receivable platform that automates the process for businesses to get their invoices paid sooner.
The $66.5 million sale to Sidetrade marks a significant milestone for both the company and Sydney Angels, which in partnership with VentureCrowd facilitated the seed round for ezyCollect in 2016.
EzyCollect has raised about $10 million in working capital since inception, including the backing of TechnologyOne (ASX: TNE) founder Adrian Di Marco.
The exit to Sidetrade represents a 600 per cent return on investment and a 6.9x multiple for investors in the Sydney Angels and VentureCrowd syndicate.
Singh, who along with Kuckreja remains with the business following the acquisition, says the founders had no intention of selling the business prior to the approach by Sidetrade.
“We weren’t really looking to sell but it made sense and within three months we closed the deal,” says Singh, joking that Chat GPT is “cheaper than an investment banker” to get a deal over the line. “It was amazingly fast.”
Singh has a strong emotional connection to the ezyCollect business which he co-founded after running a wholesale manufacturing business in Sydney.
'A very personal pain for me'
“I was a small business owner and we grew that business from $3 million to about $15 million,” he says.
“It was a medical and industrial consumables manufacturer but we almost went bankrupt three times because of cashflow.
“So, it was a very personal pain for me and when we sold that business we built ezyCollect to help businesses like that.”
EzyCollect has leveraged automation and artificial intelligence to grow its platform, but Singh says this is balanced by maintaining a human touch.
“It’s all about relationships when you are chasing money,” he says. “You can’t automate everything – you have to have a human at the centre.”
Sidetrade, which has extensive operations in Europe and the US, sees ezyCollect’s support of mid-market businesses in the Asia-Pacific region complementing its existing enterprise space where the French company deals with organisations turning over more than $500 million annually.
EzyCollect has 55 employees servicing 1,200 clients globally and generates SaaS (software-as-a-service) revenue of about $15 million a year.
About 90 per cent of its business is located in Australia and New Zealand, with the remainder in other offshore markets, primarily the US. Despite the sale, Singh says there is still “a lot to do in this region”.
“Our work isn’t done because I feel like SMEs are in a world of pain and no one is talking about it,” he says.
“I actually think we are in a recession, although it doesn’t look that way with the stock market and everything else, but there is a lot of pain out there.
“We are just one cog in the wheel that can help. We want to help businesses get paid on time.”
Sidetrade paid €34.7 million ($61.9 million) in cash to acquire ezyCollect and €2.6 million ($4.6 million) in shares, which incentivises the founders and key team members to remain with the business for a minimum of three years.
Among the company’s key staff is Jimmy Cooper, a childhood friend of Singh’s who joined ezyCollect in 2015 as a founding employee.
Earn-out opportunity
The founders have an earn-out opportunity of up to €5.6 million (A$10 million), based on ezyCollect’s annual recurring revenue growth to 2028, but Sidetrade says this is currently estimated to be about €3.3 million (A$6 million) which will be settled in Sidetrade shares and cash.
Sidetrade posted revenue of €55.0 million ($98.3 million) in 2024, up 26 per cent for the year. Revenue for the first nine months of this year is tracking 12 per cent higher at €44.4 million ($78.7 million).
Singh says Sidetrade plans to initially run ezyCollect “almost independently” from its own operations, although the companies will share their technology.
“Sidetrade has gone deep into augmented AI and agentic AI which we will incorporate into ezyCollect, while also incorporating our product into their systems,” he says.
“It will allow us to continue what we have been doing, but a lot faster and at scale. This will also make our business a lot more impactful.”
Reflecting on the company’s startup story, including the seed round backed by Sydney Angels and the VentureCrowd platform, Singh points out the importance of startups to get the support they need to drive their mission.
“If you are an early-stage business, you should be talking to people like Sydney Angels,” he says.
“Getting that seed funding gives you validation; after that we had Tank Stream Ventures, Artesian and Adrian Di Marco, a great supporter, come on board.”
VentureCrowd founder and CEO Steve Maarbani notes the significance of the ezyCollect exit for its partnership with Sydney Angels.
“Outcomes of this scale are only possible when investors gain early access to high-growth private companies,” says Maarbani.
“It is a clear sign of why private assets are becoming an essential part of investor portfolios, and why seamless digital access to these opportunities is now so important.”
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