Milwaukee angel network invests in St. Louis company

Milwaukee, Wis. - Local angel investor network Silicon Pastures will invest $195,000 in St. Louis-based Clearent, LLC, which is developing a next-generation credit card processor that does not use a mainframe computer.

It's not unusual for Wisconsin-based investors to look beyond the state's borders, and Pehr Anderson, managing director of Silicon Pastures, said this investment opportunity arrived at the right time and in the right place.

"Our investors traditionally prefer Wisconsin companies because of the aggressive tax credits that the state of Wisconsin provides, but this investment demonstrates our willingness to go outside Wisconsin when a company has a very compelling technology pitch that can benefit the broader Midwest," Anderson said.

He added that while payments processing has traditionally been done on a mainframe, Clearent's interface will use a network model the same way Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) does.

Clearent's processor will compete to replace 20- to 40-year-old systems. "It operates on commodity hardware," said Clearent CEO Dan Geraty, "but we have a software-middleware layer that sits on top of those commodity boxes that gives you the scalability and reliability that you need to run a payments network.

"The technology allows us to have a very low cost-processing core, and we couple that with a modern data warehouse and web interface."

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