The Global Fintech Bubble: This Company Believes its Products and Services Will Help it Ride the Wave

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The rise in financial technology (fintech) companies around the world seems to be disrupting the global financial space. From London, New York and across Africa, fintech startups are emerging and competing with traditional banks and large financial services firms.

When talking about how fintech is transforming the financial world, normally the focus and credit goes to popular companies like Square Inc. SQ, Robinhood Markets Inc. HOOD and Venmo, which is owned by Paypal Holdings Inc. PYPL.Some companies that may not be as popular also reside in the  fintech space and offer unique products and services that are worth attention. One such company is SurgePays Inc. SURG.

SurgePays is a fintech company providing a complete suite of underbanked financial services and prepaid products to over 8,000 convenience and neighborhood stores nationwide. What differentiates SurgePays from other well known fintechs is that they are actually in the independently owned community stores, at a grassroots level, where the underbanked frequent.

The company uses its advanced blockchain technology to provide these essential financial products and services while also upselling other wholesale goods targeted to the same underbanked clientele. While the company stated one of their key objectives is to use the capital raised to deploy a national sales team to get more than 100,000 stores transacting on its platform, additionally, the company is striving to be the first to bring real usability of digital currency to the underbanked market in the places where they shop.

What’s Cooking at SurgePays?

SurgePays announced to its customers that it has started trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Nov. 2 after completing a $19.8 million public offering. The company used some of the funds generated from the public offering to support the expansion of its Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) project through its subsidiary company SurgePhone Wireless LLC.

The EBB project is a federal subsidy program launched to help those economically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to enable internet access for all. SurgePays announced approval for its wholly owned MVNO, SurgePhone Wireless, to provide EBB subsidized internet to qualifying customers in 14 states.

The EBB program provides SurgePhone with a $90 reimbursement for each tablet distributed and $50 per customer per month, every month. The company has seen an increase in revenue from nearly $116,000 when the program was rolled out in August to more than $2 million in September and October. SurgePays has already exceeded 18,000 customers, representing $900,000 in recurring revenue every month.

Earlier this  year, SurgePays acquired Commander Communications LLC. Commander provides prepaid wireless payments and top-up services to its retail customers through approximately 500 stores primarily in Louisiana. The acquisition will bring tremendous potential for SurgePays to increase sales by leveraging both the active and inactive stores within Commander’s customer base, said Daniel Anderson, national direct sales manager for SurgePays. The company plans to expand top-up payments offered by Commander as well as deliver its fintech products and services within Commander’s network.

SurgePays’ also has a wholly owned and separately operating enterprise software company outside of the fintech industry called LogicslQ. With stated plans to IPO and ultimately spin-out this subsidiary, the company says LogicsIQ had its strongest quarter ever in the 3rd quarter, generating $7.5 million in revenue and surpassing its 2nd-quarter revenue of $4.5 million. LogicslQ provides the software as a service (SaaS) customer relationship and caseload management software Intake Logics as well as marketing services to law firms. The COVID-19 pandemic helped the company strengthen the engine behind its software platform, which allowed the development of a wide range of applications that can be deployed outside the legal market. LogicslQ’s financial results have helped the company achieve a total revenue of more than $14 million in the 3rd quarter compared to $12.8 million last year.

In July, SurgePays launched a custom private-label gift-card program for its independent retail store clients. The gift card allows the company’s clients to offer their retail customers the opportunity to purchase gift cards that can only be used in their owned stores. The card program is a way of empowering smaller merchants to provide the same services offered by their larger counterparts in the industry such as Walmart Inc. WMT, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN and Best Buy Co. Inc. BBY.

In 1 month, SurgePays collected an estimated 6,300 transactions in a 4-store pilot program using the customizable gift card. The company believes the program will help develop customer loyalty and additional revenue through unused balances on purchased cards.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.