LLR Partners has engaged Blair Jeffery, an experienced leader in the payments industry, as an Executive in Residence on behalf of LLR Equity Partners VI, L.P., a $1.8 billion private equity fund closed in October 2020. In this role, Jeffery will leverage his insights and experience from 20+ years in payments to help LLR identify, evaluate and manage new investment opportunities in the business-to-business (B2B) payments space.
Jeffery served as Chief Operating Officer of Noventis from 2010 through the acquisition by WEX Inc. in January 2019. During his tenure at Noventis, Jeffery was responsible for all operations and managed a network of more than 5,000 bank relationships and 250,000 suppliers. Prior to Noventis, he held senior operations and business development roles with established payment industry players including First Data and high growth FinTech firms including Paymetric (acquired by WorldPay) and Textura (acquired by Oracle).
“Blair brings a unique track record of successfully building and leading high performing teams, driving growth, product vision and execution,” said Ryan Goldenberg, Principal at LLR Partners. “The B2B payments ecosystem is at an inflection point as technology adoption continues to accelerate,” added Mitchell Hollin, Partner at LLR Partners. “We are thrilled to partner with Blair as we continue LLR’s 20-year history of investing in the payments ecosystem, backing growth companies and supporting top tier management teams.”
LLR’s areas of focus for investment in B2B Payments include:
- Accounts payable automation
- Accounts receivable automation
- Closed loop networks
- Cross-border payments
- Business expense management
- Virtual card gateway
- Enterprise and recurring billing
- Accounting software
The firm’s rich history of investment in the payments space includes Heartland Payment Systems (IPO in 2006, acquired by Global Payments in 2016), Fleet One (acquired by WEX Inc.), Phreesia (IPO in 2019), CompoSecure, Midigator and Celero Commerce.
For more of LLR’s perspective on the B2B payments space, check out our GrowthBit highlighting B2B Payments as an Underpenetrated Market at an Inflection Point, part of LLR’s blog series on growth opportunities in FinTech. Look for our next fintech GrowthBit coming soon.
