Helcim Raises $38 Million to Fill Small Business Banking Void

Helcim, a payments company focused on Canadian small and medium-sized businesses, has raised $38 million in new funding.

The Calgary startup’s Series C round will help Helcim invest in its platform at a time when many of Canada’s biggest banks are selling or outsourcing their merchant services operations, the company said in a Friday (Aug. 21) news release.

“There’s a real void in the market right now — merchants are coming to Helcim faster than ever, looking for a modern alternative,” said Nic Beique, Helcim’s founder and CEO. “This round lets us act on this at scale: expanding our platform, growing our team, and moving up-market so no business outgrows what we can offer them.”

The release added that Helcim is also expanding partnerships with regional banks and credit unions that are themselves shifting away from traditional providers, “in search of a modern payments platform” for their small business customers.

“Credit unions need to continue to upgrade their product offering for their small business members in the communities they serve if they want to remain relevant, compete and retain deposits,” said Nick Evens, president and CEO at Curql, which invested in the round.

“Helcim’s payment hub is the best we have seen, and their value proposition for the CUs is far more robust than what is currently in market.”

In other small business news, recent research from PYMNTS Intelligence and Velera shows that 75% of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) say they would use at least one artificial intelligence feature offered by their financial institution within the next two years. Among businesses bringing in more than $1 million in yearly revenue, that number climbs to 83%.

However, the research found that the SMB demand for AI is not chiefly for autonomous agents that move money, choose financial products or make decisions without human intervention. Instead, business owners want tools that can assist them in understanding their financial position, lower administrative complexity and make better decisions.

“That distinction gives credit unions a more practical AI strategy,” PYMNTS wrote last week. “Rather than trying to leap directly into autonomous banking, they can begin with advisory tools that make members more capable before attempting to make banking more automated.”

When asked what they want from their financial institutions, SMBs’ priorities tended to be more grounded, with 31% naming AI-powered expense tracking, and 22% seeking assistance with budgeting, cash-flow management, supplier discovery and financial-product comparisons.

“These are not moonshot applications. They are digital extensions of the financial guidance business owners already expect from a trusted banking relationship,” the report added.