ViVOtech Sells Payment Hardware Business to ID TECH

ViVOtech has sold its ViVOpay payment-hardware business, the Santa Clara, Calif., company said Monday in a notice on its website.

The fate of the now-divested business was up in the air since late July, when ViVOtech announced it was downsizing its staff after trying to sell off its ViVOpay technology for six months. It disputed rumors that it was shuttering the unit.

ID TECH, of Cypress, Calif., purchased the ViVOpay terminal business. ViVOtech did not say on its website how much it received for the unit.

ID TECH makes readers for chip- and magnetic-stripe payment cards, as well as PIN pads and bar code readers, according to its website.

“Over the last six months the company has been executing a strategy to divest its ViVOpay reader business to a qualified buyer,” says ViVOtech in the notice posted to its homepage. “With today’s announcement of the sale of its reader business to ID TECH, the first step in this strategy has been completed.”

ViVOtech was founded in 2001 and continues to sell payment software.

Last year, ViVOtech attempted to boost its terminal business by making a bid to buy Hypercom Corp.’s U.S. assets. That bid failed, and the private-equity firm Gores Group LLC purchased that portion of Hypercom and renamed it Equinox Payments LLC. VeriFone Systems Inc. purchased Hypercom’s international business; antitrust issues prevented VeriFone from buying the U.S. business as well.

Citigroup, First Data Corp., Sprint and NCR Corp., among others, have invested in ViVOtech. TechCrunch reported the ViVOpay sale Aug. 6 based on a notice from ViVOtech’s CEO.