Certify/Chrome River acquires payment card provider Emburse

Certify/Chrome River is adding San Francisco-based startup Emburse to its travel expense management portfolio.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition comes not long after Certify and Chrome River merged in a transaction valued at $1 billion and is part of what Certify calls its “multi-brand” expansion plan.

Emburse provides virtual and physical cards to organizations to use for business expenses and vendor payments. With Emburse, a recruiting manager can, for example, create a digital card that can only be spent on airfare and hotels and that will expire after a certain amount of time.

The company says its product gives businesses “deeper, real-time insight and control over corporate expenses, by allowing administrators to set granular spending parameters.”

Emburse says it has processed hundreds of millions of dollars of company spend over tens of thousands of credit cards while doubling revenue every year.

“Joining such a prestigious portfolio of travel, expense and invoice management brands will greatly accelerate our ability to expand Emburse’s reach,” says Emburse CEO Peter Lai.

“We share a common goal in helping organizations control employee spending and reduce expense fraud, all while providing a user-friendly and flexible solution to both frequent and infrequent card users.”

Emburse will be integrated into the Certify/Chrome River-owned Abacus expense management platform; Captio, Nexonia and Tallie are also part of the Certify/Chrome River portfolio.

“Adding Emburse to Abacus will enable the next major step in real-time expense reporting innovation by providing policy insight in advance of the purchase,” says Omar Qari, co-founder and general manager of Abacus.

“This exciting new capability will continue to reduce customer liability, while improving the overall employee and interview candidate experience.”

Certify/Chrome River counts more than 11,000 customers in more than 100 countries. K1 Investment Management holds a majority stake in the combined organization.