Powa Technologies Sold — And Split

Powa Technologies, a payments startup based in the United Kingdom, is being carved up.

As TechCrunch reported Thursday (March 3), the firm, which filed for bankruptcy last month, is being divvied up into two units and sold. In an announcement by accounting outfit Deloitte, PowaWeb is going to Greenlight Digital, while PowaTag is to be sold to a consortium of investors, ostensibly led by Ben White, an entrepreneur who previously sold MessageLabs to Symantec.

Financial terms of the transactions were not disclosed, and nothing has been decided yet as to what will happen to the businesses that are not based in the U.K. TechCrunch likened the dissections to a “fire sale.”

The firm was founded by entrepreneur Dan Wagner and debuted a “Square clone” called mPowa and a marketing platform tied to QR codes called PowaTag. The rivalry between Powa and Square, said TechCrunch, was marked by a “bizarre conflict” where Square issued a cease-and-desist order regarding the use of Square marketing materials.

Customer numbers were exaggerated, said TechCrunch, and that meant that revenues could not keep up with costs — a far cry for a firm that grabbed $175 million through investor Wellington Management.

Reports said that 69 jobs are being carried over from Powa to the new businesses. In a separate statement, Rob Harding, who helped lead the sale, said: “Given the precarious financial position of the business, we have had to run an accelerated and focused M&A process, quickly zeroing in on the key likely purchasers after our recent appointment.”

“We are delighted to have secured a sale for the business, preserving a significant number of jobs,” Harding added.