Small Business Accounting Takes Home Big Investment Deals

It was not the most lucrative week for B2B FinTech venture capital with multiple seed and lower-value investments coming onto the scene. But a clear winner did emerge: Small business accounting is a space that saw the largest funding round of the week, thanks to the $73 million placed with Ageras Group.

CouchFashion

We Founder Circle, a startup investment platform, has reportedly placed $150,000 in CouchFashion, a B2B fashion technology platform. Reports in CIOL said CouchFashion offers a range of services for fashion companies, including an eCommerce service offering to help industry players migrate to digital platforms. The $150,000 funding is part of its ongoing seed investment round as the company works to expand its product offering, accelerate hiring and invest in its underlying technology.

Docyt

Based in California, Docyt offers small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an accounting automation platform. Despite operating in an increasingly crowded market, the startup announced a $1.5 million seed-extension funding round from First Rays Venture Partners, while Morado Ventures and angel investors also participated, reports said. Rather than replacing existing accounting platforms like QuickBooks, the company instead integrates with these solutions to allow for data communication across disparate expense, payment and other tools while automating financial data collection, digitization, categorization and reconciliation via artificial intelligence. The company plans to use the investment to focus on customer growth, Docyt said.

Ember

The $2.24 million in fresh funding for U.K.-based Ember will help the company continue to focus on SMBs with its technology designed to help freelancers, contractors and SMBs automate tax and accounting operations. Investors at Anthemis led the investment round, which the company will use for product development, team growth and customer acquisition, reports in Business Cloud said.

Tarabut Gateway

Based in Bahrain, Tarabut Gateway has just secured the MENA (Middle East, North Africa) region’s largest-ever seed round, according to MENA Bytes reports. The company landed $13 million for its open banking technology that enables FinTechs and other third-party solution providers to connect into bank data via application programming interfaces (APIs). Investors at Target Global led the round, while Kingsway, Entrée Capital, CE Ventures, Zamil Investment Group, Global Ventures, Almoayed Technologies, and Mad’a Investment also participated. The funding will help Tarabut Gateway expand regionally and grow its team, reports said.

Electric

Greenspring Associates has led a $40 million funding round in Electric, a company helping SMBs modernize and migrate to the cloud. The company operates an IT platform to provide SMBs analytics on their own IT infrastructure, enhancing its offering with chat-based support that can integrate into Slack and Microsoft teams to help with technical issues like password resets or network connectivity issues. Reports in Venture Beat said the Series C funding will be used to accelerate its efforts to provide “enterprise-grade IT support” to its small business customer base.

PerimeterX

With $57 million in new funding, cybersecurity startup PerimeterX will be looking to expand across borders and verticals with its technology that helps corporates secure their web apps and websites. AllianceBernstein led the investment round, a press release said, while new backers Stereo Capital, JSCapital and GoldenArc Capital also participated. Existing investors Adams Street Partners, Canaan Partners, CTCP, Scale Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures US also participated.

Ageras Group

Pennsylvania’s Ageras Group, an entity made up of companies backed by Investcorp Technology Partners, has announced $73 million in new funding that will help the firm expand its B2B matchmaking service, grow through acquisitions and connect small businesses to more offerings to manage their finances. The company operates a range of accounting solutions for SMBs as well as a digital marketplace to connect small firms to critical tools. Investors at Lugard Road Capital led the investment, which will enable the company to accelerate the acquisition of B2B software firms, strengthen operations in the U.S. and abroad and begin to integrate banking solutions directly within its offering.