Merchant-Level P&L
See which customers, cohorts, and pricing structures actually create payment contribution.
20%
Annual Channel Growth
US ISV payment-processing revenue growth over the last five years.
Payments Value Creation
Payments Can Transform Enterprise Value. Most Sponsors Can’t See How To Capture It.
It is one of the largest value-creation levers hiding in a portfolio, and the one most sponsors have no read on and no plan to execute. Do not leave it to chance. Straata gives operating partners both: what each company’s payments actually earn, where value is leaking, and how to capture it before exit.
No forced processor standardization. Each company keeps its stack; Straata creates the common financial language above it.
The off-the-shelf AI for your payments data, across the whole portfolio. One financial language above every company’s stack, no build required.
Portfolio Value Signal
Illustrative Sponsor View
Payments Revenue Observed
$26.4M
Six redacted software companies, normalized to one revenue definition.
Validated Queue
$5.9M
Annualized opportunity after evidence review.
Health SaaS+17 bps
Field ServiceClean
Legal Tech+15 bps
Events+22 bps
Vertical ERP+13 bps
Automotive+9 bps
Processor-Agnostic / Company-Level EvidenceDetected ≠ Realized
The Revenue Is Already Material
The Measurement Has Not Caught Up.
Payments moved from product feature to business line. Across a portfolio, that creates a second problem: every company defines the economics differently, making the sponsor view incomplete just when the value-creation plan needs precision.
44%
Of Revenue, On Average
Integrated payments' share of total revenue among surveyed ISVs.
34%
Name The Visibility Gap
ISVs citing limited visibility into payment performance as a monetization barrier.
Market Trajectory Report synthesis / Third-party market and operator surveys / 2025–2026
Why Payments Is A Value-Creation Lever
Grow High-Margin Revenue. Recover Cost. Both Compound Into Enterprise Value.
For investors, payments is rare: it lifts the top line and cuts cost at the same time. And the revenue is high-margin and recurring, so most of it drops through to EBITDA, and it is exactly the kind of durable revenue that lifts the multiple, not just the earnings.
Revenue LeverGrow high-margin payments revenueRecurring and high-margin, so most of it drops through, and it lifts the multiple itself.
Cost LeverRecover payment costDrops to EBITDA dollar for dollar, pure recurring margin.
Enterprise Value8–12xRevenue growth plus EBITDA, at your exit multiple
Illustrative. Payments revenue is usually among the highest-margin revenue a company has, so both growth and cost recovery land in enterprise value. Your multiple is your multiple; the point is the leverage.
Built For How Sponsors Operate
Most Of Our Clients Are Already Investor-Backed.
Many of the platforms we serve sit inside private equity portfolios, so we understand how sponsors actually operate. We know how value-creation plans come together and how to move alongside operating partners and management teams at the same time.
A Sponsor-Readable Baseline
The Payments Revenue Line Finally Rolls Up.
Company-level truth comes first. Straata reads each program against its own contracts and transaction evidence, then makes the measures comparable across the portfolio.
Portfolio Payments Register
Illustrative / Normalized Definitions
| Portfolio Company | Processor Mix | Payments Revenue | Net Take | Peer Mark | Annual Gap | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01Health SaaS | Stripe + Fiserv | $6.1M | 41 bps | 58 bps | +$1.39M | Validated |
| 02Field Service | Worldpay | $4.2M | 68 bps | 64 bps | Clean | Validated |
| 03Legal Tech | Adyen | $2.7M | 39 bps | 54 bps | +$413K | Modeled |
| 04Events | Multi-Processor | $7.3M | 46 bps | 61 bps | +$975K | Detected |
| 05Vertical ERP | Global Payments | $3.8M | 44 bps | 57 bps | +$436K | Modeled |
| Illustrative Cohort | $24.1M | Five Company Baseline | +$3.21M | State-Labeled | ||
Client-specific math comes before benchmarkingClean reads remain in the portfolio record
Processor-Agnostic By Design
One Standard. Every Company Keeps Its Stack.
Private equity rarely inherits one processor, one data schema, or one operating model. That heterogeneity is not a reason to force a migration. It is the reason to build a neutral intelligence layer.
Company Evidence
OpCo 01Stripe + Rev Share
OpCo 02Worldpay + IC+
OpCo 03Adyen + PayFac
OpCo 04Multi-Processor
Straata Normalization
Contracts + Residuals + Transactions + Merchant P&L
Common Sponsor View
Net RevenueAfter Interchange
Effective CostBy Company + Cohort
Growth LeversValue + Confidence
Execution StateThrough Realization
Revenue Attachment
Measure adoption and penetration without confusing more volume with better economics.
Contract & Fee Risk
Explain margin drift, fee changes, concentration, and renewal exposure before the board asks.
Value-Creation Queue
Rank the work by annual impact, evidence confidence, effort, and time to capture.
Your Value-Creation Team, Force-Multiplied
Every Company’s Payments, In One Pane Of Glass.
A fund with a payments thesis across five companies, even with an operating partner driving it, still has no uniform way to see where the value sits or where the next hour should go. Straata puts every company on one benchmarked view and ranks the portfolio’s biggest opportunities, so your team captures more enterprise value without adding headcount.
Where each company sits against its peer mark
Below Peer / More UpsideAbove Peer / Optimized
CompanyTake RatePeerAnnual Opportunity
Health SaaS41 bps58 bps$1.39M
Events46 bps65 bps$975K
Vertical ERP44 bps57 bps$436K
Legal Tech39 bps54 bps$413K
Field Service68 bps67 bpsOn Peer
Illustrative Sponsor View / Normalized DefinitionsRanked By Annual Opportunity
One view, every company
Uniform, benchmarked payments performance across the portfolio, not anecdotes and disparate spreadsheets.
Ranked by enterprise value
The board surfaces the highest-value work first, so attention goes where it moves the mark.
Fewer FTEs, more captured
Your operating partner works the whole book from one place. More value creation, no new headcount.
Before The Sale
Find The Last Points Of Value. Know If The Juice Is Worth The Squeeze.
In the run-up to an exit, a small payments move can add real enterprise value or quietly cost volume. Straata simulates a price action before you make it: what it adds to revenue, what it risks in attrition, and what it is worth at your exit multiple, so the call is a number, not a gut feel.
Scenario / Drag To Model
Raise blended take rate +15 bps
HoldAggressive
Incremental payments revenue+$1.8M/yr
Modeled merchant attrition−$0.4M/yr
Net revenue lift+$1.4M/yr
Enterprise value at 11x+$14.9M
VerdictWorth The Squeeze
Illustrative, and built to drag. Push the rate too far and modeled attrition overtakes the gain, net revenue peaks, then falls. Every input is modeled from the company’s own transaction and contract evidence, and every output ships as a range with the attrition and realization risk stated, never a single confident number.
Payments Operating Partner, Fractional
One Payments Operating Partner For The Whole Book.
The payments expertise a portfolio needs, without hiring a payments team at every company. Straata embeds as your fractional payments operating partner, accountable across the book from diligence through exit, running the platform and the method so your value-creation team gets leverage, not another vendor to manage.
Embedded
Across the whole portfolio
One partner covering every company’s payments, not a separate hire or engagement per portco.
Accountable
To realized dollars
Owns the payments value-creation plan and is measured on captured enterprise value, not slideware.
Full Lifecycle
Diligence to exit
Pre-close diligence, day-100 execution, and an optimized, diligence-ready payments stack for the next buyer.
Platform-Backed
Not a rented body
The one-pane platform and repeatable method are how one partner credibly covers an entire book.
Not a consultant who diagnoses and departs. Not a full-time payments hire at every company. One embedded partner, accountable across the book.
Diligence To The 100-Day Plan
Every Dollar Keeps Its Evidence State.
A value-creation plan is only useful when the sponsor and company agree on what is detected, what is validated, what is approved, and what has actually reached the P&L.
Portfolio Evidence GateIllustrative / Annualized
A signal exists in the files. The mechanism and durability still need proof.
Contract, transaction, and cohort evidence support the opportunity.
The company and sponsor have selected the lever, owner, and execution path.
The result appears in signed terms, recovered cash, or operating revenue.
Modeled and realized dollars never mixOne evidence record follows the work
Price The Target
Normalize net revenue, contract economics, concentration, and payments-specific risks.
Build The Baseline
Diagnostic the highest-priority companies and establish comparable definitions.
Execute The Queue
Move pricing, processor terms, migration, attachment, or operating ownership.
Keep It Legible
Track realized value, margin change, and the next portfolio-level opportunity.
Sponsor-Context Evidence
The Work Already Shows Up In Portfolio Decisions.
Published engagement records keep the state attached to every number. Identified opportunity is not presented as realized revenue, and portfolio estimates stay estimates until the evidence closes.
Explore The Case Evidence →
17
Buy-Side Diligence RecordsPublished cases spanning target economics, risk, and post-close work.
Count
$1M+
Annual Double-Charge FoundA PE-backed software business, name withheld; mechanism documented in the case record.
Identified
$30K
Annual Missing Commission On One MIDA sponsor-portfolio case; approximately $120K was separately estimated across the portfolio.
Identified
Start Where The Evidence Is Live
Bring One Company. Or A Portfolio Cohort.
Start with a diligence question, a processor renewal, unexplained margin movement, or a small group of payments-heavy companies. Straata will show where the evidence is available, which programs merit intervention, and where the first value-creation work belongs.
Operating partner + portfolio CFO or payments leader / Twenty-minute fit check / Company-first evidence