About

our story

About Utopaya

Utopaya was founded in 2022 with the vision of assisting software vendors navigate an increasingly complex payments landscape. After years of working in ISV partnerships at major payment processors including TSYS, Global Payments, and Clearent, it became clear to me that asymmetrical information between software vendors and processors themselves often resulted in a costly and frustrating “failure to launch.”

When Brian saw an opportunity to provide advisory services to avoid these suboptimal outcomes, and Utopaya was born. We strive to serve as a conduit between the two sides of an embedded payments partnership and leverage our experience to create long-lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships.

Software vendors have unprecedented opportunity to monetize payment volume running through their systems, yet they consistently struggle to successfully commercialize an integrated payments strategy.

learn more

Sound familiar?

Utopaya leverages years of experience in integrated payments to deliver our clients a comprehensive payments strategy that creates new revenue streams, increases customer LTV, and ultimately improves the valuation of the company.

meet the founder

About Brian.

Brian Abernethy’s background in the integrated payments space includes positions of increasing responsibility at major payment processors including TSYS, Global Payments, and Clearent. Specializing in the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partnership channel, Brian has an extensive background in helping ISV’s create a comprehensive integrated payments strategy including technological requirements, operational planning, marketing campaigns, and ultimately commercialization. Throughout his career, he has overseen the creation of over 100 integrated payments partnerships in verticals markets such as Healthcare, Field Services, Non-Profit/Fundraising, Retail, Restaurant, Hospitality, Professional Services, B2B, and many more.

Brian was named a recipient of 2023 Electronic Transaction Association (ETA) “Forty Under 40,” which “recognizes the game-chargers in the payments industry.” As a member of the ETA, he participates in both the Payment Facilitation and Retail Technology committees, staying on the cutting edge of trends in both arenas. Over the past several years, Brian has provided thought leadership through public events including “ETA PayFac Day,” investor roundtables facilitated by KBW at Money 20/20, and a number of webinars and podcasts from Clearent.

‍

After founding Utopaya in early 2022, Brian has already successfully completed dozens of projects of varying size and scope. Select engagements include:

Guided a private equity backed software business valued at $1B+ to becoming a registered Payment Facilitator in record time, resulting in an $100MM+ annual revenue opportunity for the client
Advised a private equity backed healthcare software vendor to move from what was a payments agnostic approach to an integrated partnership with a leading PayFac-as-a-Service vendor
Led a private equity backed HoldCo in the Veterinary market to develop a creative commercialization strategy, unlocking payments revenue that was previously thought to be unattainable

Brian holds a Masters in Business Administration from Wake Forest University and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from St. Lawrence University, where he was an All-American goalkeeper on the Men’s Soccer team.

SVP & practice lead, embedded payments

Rebecca Walther

Rebecca Walther built her career as a growth and sales leader with more than a decade of experience driving revenue and forging strategic partnerships in the payments and fintech industry. At Clearent, she oversaw the ISV and MSP partner channels, where she negotiated complex partner agreements, structured contracts, and guided high-performing teams that consistently exceeded organizational targets.

Rebecca played a pivotal role in shaping go-to-market strategies, aligning cross functional teams, and ensuring that partner solutions were seamlessly integrated into broader company objectives. By combining strategic foresight with hands-on execution, she bridged partnerships, product, and sales to deliver measurable and lasting results.

Prior to Clearent, Rebecca held senior roles at CardConnect, where she managed multimillion-dollar client portfolios, directed account management strategies, and led ERP payment integrations with enterprise platforms such as Oracle and SAP. These experiences honed her ability to balance technical execution with business strategy, reinforcing her reputation as a trusted partner and collaborative leader.

What has always set Rebecca apart is her ability to bring clarity and structure to complex ecosystems. She cultivated meaningful relationships with clients and partners, established repeatable frameworks for success, and mentored teams to achieve both professional and organizational goals. Today, she carries forward this expertise to help organizations launch, scale, and monetize payments and SaaS opportunities with confidence.

Software vendor testimonials.

Here is what the software vendors we’ve worked with have to say

The collaboration with Brian Abernethy has delivered instant and significant value and impact to Salonkee and our payments margins.

Communication has been easy and effective. Together with Brian, we have been able to save hundreds of thousands of euros in payment costs over the upcoming 3 years.

Tom Michels - Co-Founder & CEO of Salonkee

I worked with Brian on a project to determine which third-party payment company we should partner with to implement payments.

Our use case is particular and Brian quickly understood it and helped us qualify (and disqualify) potential partners. The domain is very complex and each of those potential partners has their own approach to how to handle payments, products, payees, etc, so it was invaluable to us to have Brian help set up those meetings, sit in on those meetings asking important questions and capturing important details, and then to get his unbiased analysis at the other end of each meeting and a holistic analysis at the conclusion of our project. I recommend working with Brian without reservation, and I'm happy to serve as a reference if you want to reach out to me.

Ben Bruce - Senior Product Manager at Prism.fm

Already having strong experience in payments, Imagine Software engaged Utopaya to help us evaluate our processing relationships and commercial agreements.

His unique understanding of the market as an independent consultant combined with his objectivity in vendor evaluation allowed us to identify the best path forward, resulting in a best-in-class contract renegotiation that was a win for all parties. I'd highly encourage any software vendor to engage Brian to perfect your payments strategy.

Ben Buchanan - CMO of ImagineSoftware

We’ve had a very successful project to date.

Specifically, he’s done a great job:
• Breaking down the payments landscape and broadening our understanding of payment avenues
• Providing insight into current fast paths to market beyond what we would have assumed prior to engaging him
• Curated a list of potential payment providers resulting in an actionable approach list
• Solid RFP process that helped us identify top two partners while preserving optionality
• Detailed assistance with financial modeling as we have a CFO fairly new to the business
• Responsive, thoughtful, learned our current payments nuances quickly
• Great culture fit, good to work, with and strong sense of urgency

Mike Lamb - CEO of Clearwave

Brian has become a valuable asset to the Petvisor team during the course of our engagement.

We were struggling to establish a competitive go-to-market strategy for our payments product - a key focus for us in 2023 and beyond. Brian dug into our business to truly understand our challenges, educating us along the way on the various partnership models and vendors who could meet our needs. A strategy summit with our team, run by Brian, resulted in a creative and exciting new pricing strategy. Now, we’re more energized than ever to scale our payments business. I’d recommend Brian to any software provider that wants to optimize their payments strategy.

Tim Callahan - CEO of Petvisor

Brian was instrumental in rapidly moving needles for Agreement Express.

His deep breadth of knowledge in the industry coupled with his strategic thinking helped to propel us quickly onto a successful path. Furthermore, he went above and beyond the project by digging deeper and finding some troubled areas that we were able to quickly fix on our own. I highly recommend if you are exploring anything to do with the payments industry to engage Brian immediately for best results!

David O'Brien - CEO of Agreement Express

Brian is a true thought partner for the PeakSpan team.

His expertise across payments, vertical software and healthcare is a true asset for our investment professionals and portfolio companies. We’ve integrated Brian into our team on several occasions and have also valued his direct engagement across our portfolio companies in the healthcare and pet health spaces where he is co-architecting our payments strategy. Brian is always engaged, professional and reliable. We work with several operating advisors at PeakSpan, but when it comes to “impact players” – Brian is at the very top of our list

Jack Freeman - Partner at Peakspan

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Brian on three separate engagements with Frontier Portfolio Companies, and have been impressed with the results.

Throughout these engagements, he’s been able to swiftly and succinctly identify the key challenges facing each organization and lay out potential solutions. From there, we have been able to run efficient RFP processes to identify the best vendor partner and are now running full steam ahead on our payments initiatives. Above all, his professionalism, communication skills, and personality make our interactions with him truly enjoyable. I’d highly recommend Utopaya to any software investor interested in unlocking the payments potential within their portfolio.

Roberto Munoz - Operating Partner at Frontier Growth

Investor partner testimonials.

Here is what the investor partners we’ve worked with have to say