Safe Harbor Financial Announces Completion of Abaca Acquisition

ARVADA, Colo. – SHF Holdings, Inc., d/b/a/ Safe Harbor Financial (NASDAQ: SHFS) announced today the closing of the acquisition of Rockview Digital Solutions, Inc, d/b/a Abaca, a financial technology platform focused on serving the cannabis industry.

The acquisition increases Safe Harbor’s customer base to include more than 1,000 unique depository accounts across 40 states and U.S. territories; adds Abaca’s fintech platform to Safe Harbor’s existing technology; increases Safe Harbor’s financial institution client relationships and access to balance sheet capacity to five unique financial institutions strategically located across the United States; increases Safe Harbor’s projected monthly revenue by approximately 40%; increases Safe Harbor’s lending capacity; and nearly doubles Safe Harbor’s team, adding to the existing talent pool of the cannabis industry’s foremost financial services and financial technology experts.

Abaca’s technology was launched in 2017 and built by banking, software, and compliance experts, becoming an industry-leading cannabis financial technology platform. Abaca has facilitated more than $3.4 billion in gross transactions and has revolutionized access to compliant cutting-edge financial service solutions to the cannabis industry. Abaca’s digital platform enables small, medium, and enterprise cannabis businesses to manage and consolidate financial operations nationwide, including commercial checking, ACH, wire payments, cash logistics, treasury management, and payroll.

“Safe Harbor and Abaca share a common vision, both working to reduce the barriers to entry into banking and other financial services for cannabis operators, and we’re excited to continue pursuing that mission together,” said Dan Roda, co-founder and CEO of Abaca. “As part of Safe Harbor, we’ll be able to supercharge the Company’s growth and accelerate our ability to develop and launch new financial products for our current and future cannabis business clients.”

“The acquisition of Abaca is a critical first step in Safe Harbor’s ongoing strategy to identify companies that can expand our market share and deposit base for our financial institution clients, increase lending capacity, and complement our existing technology platform to be first in class in cannabis financial technology,” said Sundie Seefried, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Safe Harbor. “Abaca’s comprehensive banking and financial technology platform provides cannabis businesses with a full suite of financial services including compliant bank accounts, treasury management, and payment capabilities, enabling us to continue on our path of becoming a one-stop-shop for cannabis banking solutions.”

The consideration for the transaction provides the Abaca shareholders with $30 million of cash and stock. The stock consideration consists of 2,100,000 shares at closing and $12.6 million in shares at the 1-year anniversary of the closing based on a 10-day VWAP. The cash consideration consists of $3 million at closing and $3 million at each of the first and second anniversaries of the closing.

(This information is primarily sourced from MXXN.  Highly Capitalized has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Read our Disclaimer here).