B2B eCommerce Surpasses B2B Payments, Accounting In Funding

B2B payments and accounting continue to capture the imagination of innovators and the attention of investors in this week’s venture capital roundup. But B2B eCommerce took home the biggest slice of the pie, and introduced the market to a new unicorn in the process.

SimpliFi

Corporate card FinTech SimpliFi raised an undisclosed sum for its Cards-as-a-Service platform for businesses across the Middle East and Pakistan. Based in the United Arab Emirates, SimpliFi provides a platform that allows third parties to issue their own prepaid corporate cards for a variety of use-cases, including employee and gig worker payouts and payroll. While the company didn’t reveal how much it raised, the company said the seed funding, which closed earlier this year, was led by Raed Ventures, Rally Cap and Sukna Ventures. Angel investors also participated.

Read more: Cards-as-a-Service Tackle MENA’s Market Fragmentation

MedPay

India’s MedPay announced a $1.2 million funding round for its API technology, enabling healthcare providers to seamlessly accept payments from insurance companies. Its Connected Card Network, powered by artificial intelligence, facilitates real-time payment acceptance and a streamlined, cashless claim process for insured consumers. U.K.-based Entrepreneur First and GrowX Ventures provided the seed round, the company said.

CoreChain

Blockchain-based B2B payments FinTech CoreChain secured $1.25 million in pre-seed funding from Ulu Ventures, Connecticut Innovations, Bloccelerate VC and New Form Capital. CoreChain said in its announcement that it will deploy the funding to focus on customer acquisition and expansion of its network, which uses blockchain to facilitate both B2B payments and enterprise financing. Its solution offers an integrated model for third parties, including ERP, software firms, banks and other platforms to offer B2B payments functionality for their own customers.

Read more: DeFi Preps For B2B Payments Disruption, Beginning With Data

Yaydoo

Accounts receivable technology startup Yaydoo announced $20 million in new funding for its B2B payments acceptance solution. TechCrunch reported that Base10 Partners and monashees co-led the Series A round, which also saw participation from SoftBank’s Latin America Fund and Leap Global Partners. Yaydoo offers a P-card solution, as well as other products to support cash flow management, financing and small business digitization, with support for both accounts payable and accounts receivable workflows. Based in Mexico City, Yaydoo said it will use the investment to expand its team across Mexico and grow into new markets across Latin America.

Reserve Trust

With $30.5 million in Series A funding, Reserve Trust, based in Colorado, will be able to expand its B2B payments service that uses a variety of payment rails to optimize transactions for banks and other financial institutions to deliver to their own corporate clients. Designed to overcome the challenges of traditional correspondent banking, Reserve Trust can facilitate domestic and cross-border B2B payments by integrating into existing payments infrastructure. QUED Investors led the round, while FinTech Collective and Ardent Venture Partners also participated.

Zeni

Palo Alto-based Zeni revealed a $34 million Series B funding round via blog post this week, noting that Elevation Capital led the investment, while Think Investments and Neeraj Arora also participated. Zeni operates a business bookkeeping-and-accounting platform, and said that the investment will enable the startup to expand its services to new verticals and acquire new customers. Designed to help firms automate business finances, Zeni said existing backers including Saama Capital, Amit Singhal, Sierra Ventures, Twin Ventures, Dragon Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures also participated in the round.

OFB Tech

India’s OFB Tech became the latest B2B FinTech unicorn this week for its OfBusiness offering, a B2B eCommerce platform that offers raw material procurement tools as well as integrated cash flow financing for business users. The company announced $160 million in new funding led by SoftBank’s Visino Fund 2, reports said, noting that the startup is now valued at $1.5 billion. The funding will allow OFB Tech to expand its B2B eCommerce portal to include semi-finished goods, private labels and contract manufacturing. The company also said it is looking to expand geographically and invest in new marketing channels. Existing investors Matrix Partners and Falcon Edge also participated.