It's co-founder, Eliot Crowther, is about to depart the business with a stake worth just over $99 million.

Crowther says he is leaving the business for personal reasons to focus on his family.

In 2011 he started the company with Chris Heaslip as an outside-work-hours job.

The two New Zealanders who both come from Christian backgrounds a saw there was a gap in the market for a mobile app for charity payments.

Prior to co-founding Pushpay, Crowther was a leading sales executive at HRV, the home ventilation business.

He is a former New Zealand representative in cycling, holds a DipAppSc from AUT University.

He lives with his family in the USA.

Early on, Pushpay's focus shifted to the lucrative mobile church donations market, starting in New Zealand and then expanding into Australia, the US and Canada.

These days growth is coming from medium and large churches in North America.

Pushpay Holdings recently achieved the $100 million mark in annualized revenue, and the company itself is valued at $1.2 billion.

Heaslip, who is the chief executive sees an opportunity to generate US$1 billion of annual revenue in the future.

He said the company expects the number of deals it's closing and deal size to accelerate over the coming year.

Last week Pushpay Holdings went into a trading halt to prepare a bookbuild to let Crowther exist.

24.8 million shares were to be sold in a fully underwritten bookbuild ahead of his resignation, first as a director on June 21 then as an employee on July 31, Pushpay said in a statement.

The bookbuild was oversubscribed, with bids subject to scaling, and got offers from 19 institutional investors across New Zealand, Australia and the US, Pushpay said.

Source

• paymentweek.com
• newsroom.co.nz
• pushpay.com
• scoop.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: capterra.com Screenshot

"The people of God cannot forgive this.

"Price lists for baptism, blessings, Mass intentions need to go.

"Churches must never become businesses.

"Ever.

"God's redemption is free.

"Always".

Pope Francis then launched a scathing condemnation of Church businessmen, Vatican Radio reports.

"When those who are in the Temple - be they priests, lay people, secretaries, but who manage the Temple, who in ministry of the Temple - become businessmen, people are scandalised.

"And we are responsible for this.

"The laity too! Everyone...

"It is interesting: the people of God can forgive their priests, when they are weak; when they slip on a sin ... the people know how to forgive them. But there are two things that the people of God cannot forgive: a priest attached to money and a priest who mistreats people.

"This they cannot forgive!

"It is scandalous when the Temple, the House of God, becomes a place of business, as in the case of a wedding when the church was being rented out". Continue reading