Maltese payroll startup Buddy has been acquired by Moorepay, one of the United Kingdom’s largest payroll providers, in a deal that marks a striking leap for a platform built on a small island and now embedded inside a British industry heavyweight.

Buddy was founded in Malta in 2018 by Jonathan Mifsud and David Seisun. The company entered the UK payroll market in 2023 and the acquisition completed earlier this year. Mifsud has taken on the role of Product Director at Moorepay, while existing Buddy customers continue using the same software, supported by the same team, now operating under the Moorepay name.

The deal closes one chapter for Buddy while opening a considerably larger one, giving the Malta-based founding team access to the scale and infrastructure of a major UK payroll organisation.

Moorepay chief executive Anthony Vollmer welcomed the acquisition, pointing to the quality of Buddy’s technology and the strength of the team behind it. He described a shared commitment to delivering payroll and HR solutions as the foundation for the combined business going forward and expressed enthusiasm about the continuing contribution the Malta team would make within Moorepay.

For Mifsud, the deal carries clear personal significance. He described the journey from a Maltese technology business to a platform now helping to shape the future of payroll and HR within one of the UK’s largest providers as something the whole Buddy team can take genuine pride in. His appointment as Product Director suggests the Malta operation will play an active role in shaping what Moorepay builds next, rather than simply being folded in and left to tick over quietly.

The Buddy brand is transitioning to Moorepay, but the company has been emphatic that the core of what made Buddy work remains intact: its people, its technology and its approach to customers. Mifsud framed the acquisition as an opportunity to accelerate what Buddy originally set out to achieve, now with greater scale and resources behind it.

For a startup that launched in Malta, entered a fiercely competitive UK market after just five years and caught the attention of a sector leader within two, it is a clean and creditable outcome.