Uphold, a San Francisco-based digital money platform, has acquired Cortex MCP, a mobile commerce and authentication company, according to a press release.

Uphold said the acquisition will enable Uphold to strengthen its digital money platform with secure payment applications, leveraging Cortex's mobile wallet technology.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed in the release.

This acquisition follows Uphold's announcement of a $57.5 million partnership with former Ripple executive, Greg Kidd, to increase the company's connectivity to financial systems.

Uphold will also acquire Cortex's patent portfolio and immediately start work on new IP solutions with an emphasis on authentication, tokenization, and blockchain-centric products, according to the release. These products will enable Uphold to further extend its market leadership in expanding new innovative services in payment, acceptance, and identification for both the rapidly growing Uphold user base and merchants worldwide.  

Specifically, the acquisition will enable:

• A new Uphold payments capability that leverages both crypto and FIAT assets.
• A new closed-loop payment platform expansion, leveraging Uphold's remittance and transfer capabilities in Mexico, Latin America, and beyond.
• New digital ID/authentication capabilities and services.
• Additional security solutions that further secure Uphold members' accounts.

Cortex's founder, Shaunt Sarkissian, will head up Uphold's payments team.

"Cortex's mobile centric, closed loop payment and secure tokenization solutions provide industry leading technologies and security to our platform," William Dennings, Uphold COO, said in the release. "It additionally brings new commercial offerings and opportunities to our enterprise division, Uphold Solutions."