I3 Verticals
“Can a former payments-centric company become the mission-critical software operating system for U.S. public sector entities after divesting its payment rails entirely?”
Founded in 2012 as a payments company (originally 2Charge Payments), i3 Verticals evolved into a combined vertical SaaS and payment facilitation platform serving public sector entities. After years building a merchant-of-record payments business alongside its software, the company made a decisive pivot in 2024, selling its entire merchant services operation to Payroc WorldAccess for ~$438 million, reorienting entirely around cloud-native enterprise software for government and education verticals. Post-divestiture, i3 Verticals is a pure-play public sector SaaS business, with embedded payments now handled through third-party relationships rather than proprietary infrastructure.