“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.
I3 Verticals processes payments through Worldpay (via Payroc, post-divestiture sub-merchant agreement).
I3 Verticals is founded in 2012 and headquartered in Nashville, TN, USA.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against I3 Verticals and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.