Founded in Vancouver in 2002, Zafin is a leading provider of relationship banking solutions to banks and financial institutions. The company’s AI-driven platform unifies data, enhances decision-making, streamlines workflows, and personalizes offerings, empowering banks to innovate with speed and precision while driving customer loyalty.
For Randy Garg, the Founder and Managing Partner of Vistara Growth, a provider of flexible debt and equity solutions tailored to support long-term growth for mid-to-later-stage technology companies, investing in Zafin made a lot of sense. He had previously backed Zafin while working for a family office and always liked the business. When he went on to found Vistara in 2016, continuing to support Zafin was an easy decision.
“Zafin was a great business and was a natural fit for Vistara,” says Garg. “It’s in our target market, sells to large businesses, and had a management team that we believed in with lots of growth potential.” Vistara’s initial investment took the form of convertible debt that they eventually planned to convert to equity. At the time, Zafin had already evolved from a services-oriented to a product-oriented business and was looking for capital to support its transition from an on-premise to a SaaS solution.
In 2019, Zafin raised its Series B round, led by Vistara converting its debt into equity and bringing Accenture Ventures in as a new investor. As part of that change, Vistara went from being a board observer to an active board member. “As a board observer, we would make introductions whenever we could to be helpful and offer advice,” recalls Garg. “As a board member, we are able to get much more involved in helping drive the business forward.”
Dave Revell, who joined Zafin’s board in 2019 and served as its Chairman from 2022 to 2024, got to witness that involvement first-hand. “When I joined the board, Vistara was already an investor,” says Revell. “I immediately liked what I saw. They were very effective and provided the kind of patient capital we needed. It was clear that they weren’t going anywhere and would support us all the way.”
Zafin Flourishes With Vistara’s Support
Over the years that followed, Vistara played an important role in supporting Zafin. That included helping to recruit new executives to the company, providing numerous investor support letters to prospective global customers considering partnering with Zafin, guiding its overall strategy around financing, and playing an instrumental role in its acquisition of FINCAD, the leading provider of valuation and risk solutions for derivative and fixed income portfolios and also a Vistara portfolio company.
With this support, Zafin experienced exponential growth, including an 8x increase in revenue, while Vistara was invested. During that time, the company also launched a strategic partnership with Microsoft, further built out its board and management team, and went from having just a few global banks as customers to more than a dozen. The once small regional business even grew to have more than 750 employees spread across six continents.
Zafin also evolved from a company with a point solution in a single space into a much more global business and a far more strategic partner to banks. In the process, they went from being a company that would only deal with a customer’s line of business executive and CIO, to one that was on the radar at the board level of major banks. This allowed the company to do larger and more strategic deals.
“Zafin’s path to success wasn’t linear,” says Revell. “Vistara was a great partner that helped us through a variety of growing pains by offering strategic advice and providing the kind of long-term investment we needed to successfully navigate many iterations of growth.”
A Fantastic Exit
As Zafin expanded, it got approached by a number of different strategics and PE firms that were interested in buying the business. However, by late 2023, the time was right to start thinking about an exit. Vistara and other early investors had been invested in the company for seven years at that point and were open to monetizing their holdings. Meanwhile, Zafin’s founding team was also looking to take some of their chips off of the table.
In late 2023, the team engaged Goldman Sachs to run a process. Ultimately, that led to Zafin’s acquisition in 2024 by Nordic Capital, a large private equity firm based in Sweden, for a reported US$500 million+.
It was a great outcome for everyone involved. “Financial returns aside, which were very good, we were pleased to be able to help Zafin with different forms of capital to meet different needs. That flexibility is what ultimately allowed the founders to control overall dilution and still have a 50%+ stake in the business when it sold. It really worked out well for the founders compared to the typical VC-backed startup, and all of the stakeholders.” Vistara has been recognized with the VC Regional Impact Award, Western Canada, for its work with Zafin.
Revell agrees that the transaction was a big success. “We’re delighted with the deal and are grateful to Vistara for being a great partner who stood by us in good times and bad and provided the support we needed to not only grow the business but also position it for a fantastic sale. We couldn’t be happier.”
