Amaryllis Was Founded on Demand and a Good Idea

 

Companies are like superheroes in that they all have an origin story, explaining how they started and began to build something meaningful. In this episode of the Software and Technology Podcast, host Tyler Kern sat down with Amaryllis Payment Solutions co-founders Ori Hay and Adi Ekshtain. They discuss their origin story and how the two recognized the demand for third-party aggregators in payment services that would revolutionize the industry.

Before co-founding Amaryllis with Ekshtain, Hay spent more than a decade working in credit card processing services and saw the coming wave of e-commerce transactions. “I recognized that this is where things are going to go,” he said.

When Ekshtain wanted to create a third-party payment processing partner for e-commerce, he turned to Hay, a noted developer, patent holder, and expert in FinTech.

“I thought it was a very smart idea and it came at the right time,” Ekshtain said.

The two partnered to build a dot net software for payments, the first commercially-viable mobile face-to-face payment solution.

“Back then with Microsoft, there was nothing to build real infrastructure on,” Hay said. “Since Adi is the technology guy, he came to me saying there’s a new thing called dot net.”

Ekshtain continued, “We struck a partnership with the Microsoft technology center. Together with them, we built the first-ever payment gateway built on Microsoft dot net technology. That proved to us we could build an economically-viable software, and it allowed Microsoft to have a case study of a financial system that is mission-critical.”

In this episode, Ekshtain and Hay also discussed the significance of the platform’s flexibility, the uniqueness of the payment solution, and how competition has followed their lead.

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the Software & Electronics Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!
Twitter – @TechMKSL
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Rothman Index
The Origin Story of the Rothman Index – Episode 5
January 8, 2026

Hospitals collect enormous amounts of clinical data, yet preventable patient decline remains a persistent challenge. Over the past two decades, hospitals have invested heavily in early warning scores and rapid response infrastructure, but translating data into timely, meaningful action has proven difficult. As clinicians contend with alert fatigue and increasing documentation burden, a more…

Read More
Rothman Index
My Mother and the Story of the Genesis of the Rothman Index – Episode 4
January 8, 2026

Healthcare generates enormous volumes of clinical data, yet making sense of that information in real time remains a challenge. Subtle changes in vitals, labs, and nursing assessments often precede serious events, but when that information is fragmented across the medical record, emerging risks can go unnoticed. The central challenge facing hospitals today is not…

Read More
home
Delivering Moments That Matter: The Art of Joy, Memory, and Meaning at Anthropologie Home
January 8, 2026

These days, ‘home’ means more than just four walls. It’s where people reset, gather, and express who they are—raising the bar for what they expect from the brands that help shape those spaces. Consumers are no longer just buying décor—they’re investing in meaning, memory, and moments that last. Research continues to show that people…

Read More
Texas energy
Small Margins, Big Risks: How Fraud Hurts Texas Energy Retailers
January 6, 2026

Fraud has quietly become one of the most existential threats in Texas’s deregulated retail electricity market—because the business runs on razor-thin margins and delayed payment. Under the non-POR system overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), retail energy providers assume the full risk of nonpayment. With profit margins often measured in just a…

Read More