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Codeifai Limited (ASX:CDE) has signed a deal to acquire its main rival, Trust Codes, with the “watershed” $650,000 cash and shares bargain firmly placing the AI-driven QR code and protection tech developer as a sector powerhouse.
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Trust Codes was first founded in 2013 and boasts a serialised QR code traceability program, which it serves to Australian, New Zealand, and U.S. clients.
Some of those clients include iNova Pharmaceuticals, Nutura Organic, Silver Fern Farms, Mildura Fruit, and Bubs Australia – all these now fall under Codeifai’s umbrella after the “company-transforming” deal was inked today.
“With this acquisition, Codeifai has the opportunity to become a global authority in intelligent product identity,” chairman John Houstin said. “This is not just about acquiring our main competitor, it’s about consolidating expertise, scaling innovation, and defining what the future of consumer-brand interaction becomes.”
Mr Houston added Codeifai sees it “more of a merger” than a complete takeover.
There will be changes between the two companies, either way, though, including Trust Codes founder Paul Ryan joining the Codeifai management team.
He’ll oversee both platforms being integrated as Serialisation and Innovation boss.
(As sole Trust Codes shareholder, Mr Ryan is also set to pocket as much as $650,000, split between 5,000,000 CDE shares and $150K cash after an impending raise.)
This union between rivals will mean Codeifai and Trust Code’s flagship products will eventually share merged dashboards, will run with a single backend system, and have all traceability engines unified at the same time.
Hopes within Codeifai are that everything will happen quite smoothly with minimal to no disruption for clients already using either tech service.
Whether that really happens or not can only remain to be seen, though.
What is already in the history books is how the Oz markets liked today’s acquisition-come-“merger” — and to 2.30pm Sydney time, some investors had actually been cashing out to the tune of around -10%, to 3.6cps.
While it is a bit of a dip, CDE is still up around +80% YTD.
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Stretching the spendings chart out even further, the digital tech developer has rocketed as much as +260% through the current calendar year.
That explosive price surge may be thanks to “Sunrise 2027” — the impending industry-mandated shift from traditional 1D barcodes to GS1-compliant 2D codes across all retail projects. Smack bang in the middle of that changeover will be Codeifai’s “Connect” platform and its newly-acquired Trust Code goodies.
On that, Codeifai said the “merger” was the perfect timing for those next few years.
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