ZenBusiness Acquires Joust

ZenBusiness, the Austin-based business formation services company, recently announced that it reached an agreement to acquire Joust for an undisclosed amount. Offering financing options to freelancers and entrepreneurs, Joust services, like PayArmour, will continue under its new ownership, rebranded as ZenBusiness Money when it relaunches in October.

“The acquisition of Joust and upcoming launch of ZenBusiness Money furthers our mission to provide the nation’s 57 million micro businesses with exceptional and friendly tools that simplify the process of forming and running their business,” ZenBusiness CEO and Co-founder Ross Buhrdorf noted in a statement. “We are excited to welcome the world-class fintech experience the entire Joust team brings to the ZenBusiness family as we continue to grow the features of our platform.”

With there still being an urge to work from home, all of ZenBusiness’s newly acquired employees will work remotely. Given the oddness of being bought in the middle of a global pandemic, Buhrdorf explained in a call how while covid-19’s economic impacts have led to an increased interest in their product, this uptick is not something new, but rather an inevitability.

“There’s no denying our businesses have accelerated as a result of covid-19. I don’t want to get carried away there because this was a growing trend before this. Lots of companies were turning employees into contractors, and so this was a growing trend. I think that the pandemic accelerated that, either out of necessity or it was, ‘hey, the world’s a changed place, I need to start up a side gig.’”

Joust CEO Lamine Zarrad followed up on this point by mentioning that this pattern is linked to why ZenBusiness is a B Corp, with the hope being that they will be able to provide support to Americans as they encounter new financial challenges.

“We are now a public benefit corporation, and Joust’s missions has always been oriented towards social good. And we’re excited to help these individuals who are now becoming entrepreneurs and wading into these waters that are completely uncharted.”

Brendan Garrett was a Reporter at deBanked.