Daniel Lee's
business of staying

For 53 years, Cibar carried on without seriously considering a sale. The Colorado Springs company, founded in 1969, built software for international trade finance: the letters of credit, guarantees and transfers that help banks move business across borders. Then its president, Nick Mayer, met Daniel Lee and his team at Aquila. In September 2022, Cibar joined the group. A business old enough to remember the moon landing had found a buyer whose pitch involved staying around.

Mayer described the change of mind plainly. Cibar had never really considered selling until the introduction to Lee's team; detailed due diligence persuaded it that the two organizations shared a vision. The company would continue as an autonomous business unit. The transaction put an unusually concrete example behind a word Lee uses often: permanent.

Lee is Aquila's Toronto-based chief executive. His work connects companies whose products rarely attract a crowd outside a launch party, assuming they have a launch party at all. Banking compliance, newspaper production and school administration are among the trades represented. These are businesses with customers, histories and specialized jobs to do. Lee's public commitments concern what happens to them after ownership changes.

An accountant enters the software business

His route began in accounting. Lee holds an Honors BA and a Master of Accounting from the University of Waterloo, and the CPA and CA designations. He worked in PwC's audit and advisory practices before joining Constellation Software's head office in 2006, shortly after its initial public offering.

Over the following years, he held CFO and senior executive positions within Constellation and its operating groups. He became Aquila's CEO in 2021. The sequence matters: he arrived at the chief executive's desk after years inside the organization, with finance running through his career. By then, the software portfolio he would lead already had businesses and relationships of its own.

Aquila sits within Vela Software and belongs to Constellation Software. That family connection places Lee inside an established software ownership structure. Aquila offers operating support, financial backing and opportunities for managers to learn from one another. Its stated investment horizon stretches over decades. An acquisition announcement is therefore the beginning of a relationship that the organization says it intends to keep.

The purchase comes with a promise

Cibar supplied one test of that proposition. Its banking applications covered specialized processes, including imports and exports, standby letters of credit and cash letters. The attraction of the deal was described by both sides in terms of continuity: Lee spoke of supporting Cibar's existing mission, while Mayer anticipated a partnership for employees and customers.

The language became especially explicit later that month, when Aquila acquired Neosoft in Santiago, Chile. Founded by Erwin Piwonka in 1993, Neosoft supplied regulatory reporting and compliance software for banks and financial institutions. Its work combined software with knowledge of banking rules. Lee's announcement included a commitment to preserve the company's founding legacy and values.

“Aquila pledges to preserve Neosoft's founding legacy and values”

Daniel Lee · Neosoft acquisition, September 2022

Piwonka described the transaction as a route to new technologies, expanded products and commercial opportunities across Latin America. Neosoft would remain autonomous. Both parties were talking about growth, but the existing company remained central to the explanation. The founder, the technical expertise and the customers all had a place in the proposed future.

There is a practical question inside every such promise: how does a group provide useful support while letting a specialized company keep doing its job? Aquila's announcements repeatedly pair those two commitments. They describe access to a wider organization alongside continued operation as an autonomous business unit. The arrangement gives Lee's acquisition language something more specific than a cheerful welcome.

A banking map drawn one business at a time

The Latin American expansion continued. In August 2023, Aquila acquired iuvity, the Miami-headquartered digital banking business founded in 2000. Its software covered online banking channels, cybersecurity and analytics for financial institutions across the Americas. Lee called the transaction a permanent union and tied it to Aquila's longer-term commitment to the region's banking and financial technology businesses.

He also wrote about it in a personal LinkedIn post. Alongside welcoming iuvity, he said he looked forward to working directly with its team. In the same message, he congratulated the Atex team on the acquisition of Laidback Solutions. His account of the year's work included investment in existing businesses as well as the arrival of new ones.

December brought Financial Systems Company, or FSC, founded in 1994 and based in Colombia, with offices in Chile and Peru. Its systems automate debt and credit collection for banks, financial institutions and other businesses. Lee's statement again linked support for the company's people with continuing investment across Colombia and Latin America. FSC would retain its autonomous operating status.

In February 2025, Aquila acquired ITC Soluciones Tecnológicas in Bogotá. Founded in 1998, ITC provided financial asset management software for investment funds, trusts, insurers, cooperatives and other financial businesses. Its customers extended beyond Colombia to Central America, Uruguay and Paraguay. Lee committed support to its mission, clients and partners.

These companies occupy different parts of financial work. A digital banking interface, a regulatory report, a collections process and an investment portfolio require different expertise. Keeping the names and functions separate makes the expansion easier to understand. Lee's group was adding specific capabilities, each attached to an existing business and its own customer relationships.

The newspaper still needs its machinery

Lee's responsibilities also reach the media business, where software helps produce the things people actually read. Aquila acquired Comosoft in May 2022. Founded in 1994, the company developed marketing production workflows and product information management tools. Its LAGO product supported data and media production for customers including retailers, grocery chains, manufacturers and marketing agencies.

Lee described Comosoft as an addition to Aquila's media and advertising technology companies, with a commitment to a long-term partnership. It is a useful reminder that software investment can concern the mechanics behind a catalogue as readily as the mechanics behind a bank. The finished page gets the attention; the production workflow gets the work.

Laidback Solutions joined through Atex in August 2023. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Sweden, it supplied advertising production and file management tools. Its products were used in 20 countries at the time of the announcement. Laidback's CEO, Pär Andersson, pointed to shared customers and already integrated solutions when explaining the fit.

That existing connection made the transaction more tangible than a map with another flag on it. Lee spoke about the match with Aquila's products and customers. Laidback would operate within Atex's existing advertising business unit. The company's name offered a small joke for anyone who has ever faced a production deadline; the work itself was decidedly practical.

Keeping independence, sharing the work

Aquila's lending businesses provide another view of the structure. In August 2022, the group formed LendSuite Software around Infinity Software, EPIC Loan Systems and Tekambi. Their products covered lending systems, loan origination and management, and underwriting and decisioning. The individual companies would continue operating as autonomous businesses.

Raphael Ocampo was named to oversee LendSuite. He described a plan for closer integrations and fewer obstacles between software vendors. Here was a specific form of collaboration within the organization Lee led: related companies could offer connected solutions while keeping their individual operations. Autonomy still allowed work across company boundaries.

Aquila also brings its operators together in person. Its ASPIRE24 event in Miami gathered nearly 300 software operators and departmental leaders from several regions. Lee shared accounts of the gathering on LinkedIn. The company's subsequent ASPIRE25 program in Cancún featured him alongside leaders from Cibar, Tekambi, Neosoft, Atex, FSC and Emphasys HFA.

The names trace a path back through the portfolio. Mayer's Cibar, Piwonka's Neosoft and Ocampo's Tekambi appear again, this time in a series of conversations. Topics at the 2025 leadership summit included organic growth, operational excellence and AI. A collection of companies needs occasions for the people running them to compare their work.

The horizon reaches Rome, then Québec

In May 2025, Aquila announced its acquisition of Enterprise SpA, a Rome-based banking software company with origins in 1995. Its products addressed trade and supply chain finance, payments, and digital and mobile banking. Founder and CEO Marisa Casale described Aquila as a permanent partner for the company, its team and its clients.

Lee linked Enterprise to Aquila's multi-decade investment mission. The following month, Aquila added Colombia's Neurona, a payments technology business founded in 1998. In July, it acquired Plurilogic, a school and student information management software company with 40 years of history serving education institutions in Québec and Canada. Plurilogic would also remain an autonomous business unit.

Banking in Rome and school administration in Québec make an unlikely pair on a dinner-party seating plan. Within Lee's working world, each is a specialized software business with a history to carry forward. His remarks on Plurilogic focused on supporting its continued service to customers and partners. The vocabulary remained familiar even as the industry changed.

Return to Cibar and the story has a human scale again: a president who had not seriously contemplated selling, a meeting with Lee's team, a due diligence process and a decision. The promise of permanence helped describe the relationship both sides wanted. Lee's public career now revolves around making that kind of commitment across many businesses. Buying the company gives the promise a starting date. The work afterward gives it substance.