B2B Investment Tracker, Sept. 4-11

Alternative lending investments stole the spotlight this week, and while the $115 million invested in the space is nothing to scoff at, the enterprise mobility wars dominated our B2B Investment Tracker this week thanks to a little company called BlackBerry. The company’s more than $400 million spending spree means mobile tech firms mean business when it comes to getting their devices in the workplace.

The Breakdown:
Enterprise Mobility: $437M
Alt-Lending: $115M
B2B eCommerce $9M
Payroll SaaS: ?
B2B Billing: ?

Alt Lending Bounces Back In The U.S.

Alternative lending to small businesses in on the decline in the U.S., but investors signaled last month that they weren’t ready to give up on the industry entirely. This week, three high-profile deals kicked the alt lending VC slump.

[bctt tweet=”Investors signaled last week that they weren’t ready to give up on the alt lending industry”]

The start of investors’ attention to the SME marketplace lending began early in the week when reports emerged Tuesday (Sept. 8) that CommonBond secured $35 million from backers August Capital, Nyca Partners and others. CEO David Klein said that the support will help the firm strengthen its staff and technology.

Backers soon followed on Thursday (Sept. 10), when Orchard Platform raised $30 million in a round led by Thrive Capital along with Victory Park Capital, Thomvest Ventures and Jon Winkelried, the former president of Goldman Sachs Group, according to reports.

That same day, Fundbox, which provides SMEs with tools to manage their cash flow and a platform to access invoice financing, revealed that it is on track to double its revenue growth every 75 days. The goal coincides with Fundbox’s announcement of a $50 million fundraising round led by Spark Capital Growth, a new investor for the firm, along with a flurry of other backers including Sound Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Khosla Ventures. The round follows about five months after a $40 million Series B round, reports said.

In a statement, Fundbox CEO Eyal Shinar said the company is “thrilled” to enter into a new relationship with Spark Capital Growth. “Spark will provide invaluable expertise as we work to realize our mission of being the go-to cash flow solution for small business, and continue building the world’s first B2B credit network,” he said.

The attention to the space from venture capitalists is a good sign for the industry, the companies said.

“Marketplace lending is moving from marginal to mainstream in 2015,” Klein said in an interview with Bloomberg. Orchard CEO Matt Burton sounded off with similar sentiments, telling reporters that the alternative lending sector has been “validated as kind of the future of how credit is going to be extended.”

“Investors have been embracing companies in the space,” he added.

A Few Outliers

Investors are embracing companies in other B2B spaces, too. Take B2B eCommerce, for instance. India-based B2B online marketplace Industrybuying.com secured $9 million in funding, reports said Thursday (Sept. 10), thanks to backing from Kalaari Capital and SAIF Partners, among others. The Series A round follows seven months after a $2 million seed funding round, also led by SAIF Partners, according to reports. Today the platform is used by up to 2,000 suppliers, but the firm said it wants this number to top 10,000 by the end of the year.

Looking ahead, the market is sure to see more action from India. Singapore-based fund Beenext is set to pump about half of its assets into a new fund in India that will target B2B startups; reports Monday (Sept. 7) said that Beenos said the fund is worth about $60 million.

B2B payments innovators saw a couple notable merger deals, too.

SteelBrick offers configure, price and quote Software-as-a-Service to B2B firms, but until now, it could not close the sales loop entirely: Corporate clients were left to handle transactions independently once they agreed on a price through SteelBrick services. The company said Thursday that it is integrating billing tools into its service through the buyout of Invoice IT for an undisclosed amount, reports said. The takeover allows SteelBrick to not only offer businesses a way to provide quotes to their clients, but for those businesses to start billing and getting paid immediately after the deal is struck. The acquisition of Invoice IT, now to be called SteelBrick Billing, follows years of SteelBrick looking to develop its own billing software. SteelBrick CEO Godard Abel told reporters that the buyout instead allows the firm to offer payments services much more quickly than if it waited to complete its internal tool.

The price tag for the acquisition was not revealed, but on Thursday, Financial Gravity Operations announced the buyout of payroll software service provider Metro Data Processing. Absorbing MDP, which focuses its payroll tools for the SME segment, follows less than a year after Financial Gravity acquired Cloud9 Holdings; the financial services firm said MDP is a “great fit” to the company. In a statement, Financial Gravity Operations COO and Integrator Paul Boyd said that the takeover will lead to significant cross-sales opportunities as the two firms will merge their client bases. “When looking at acquiring a well-operated business to help us establish our footprint to deliver our services in Tulsa, MDP offers the type of foundation we can build upon,” the executive said. MDP is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Enterprise Mobility

The deals in the alt lending space grabbed media attention, but investors are fanning the flames of the enterprise mobility wars.

[bctt tweet=”Investors are fanning the flames of the enterprise mobility wars.”]

On Wednesday (Sept. 9), U.S.-based Apperian, which offers businesses a platform to develop and manage their own mobile apps, said it secured $12 million in funding ) through a Series C investment round led by FirstFloor Capital, plus several others. The funding, reports said, will be used to fuel market and product expansion. In an interview with Xconomy, Apperian CEO Brian Day said the funding signals a new maturity for the BYOD movement. “It’s a view of how mature the market is,” he said, noting that large enterprises are “embracing mobile.”

Some of the world’s largest mobile technology innovators are fueling the corporate embrace of BYOD, and are willing to spend big bucks for it.

Over the weekend reports emerged that Canada’s BlackBerry reached a deal to acquire Good Technology in the name of securing its mobile devices in the workplace.

The takeover was inked for $425 million – by far the largest investment of the week – and is set to close by the end of November, BlackBerry said.

The company stated how the takeover will help BlackBerry really zero in on the enterprise segment in hopes of giving industry leaders Apple, Samsung, Windows and Google a run for their money.

“By acquiring Good, BlackBerry will better solve one of the biggest struggles for CIOs today, especially those in regulated industries: securely managing devices across any platform,” John Chen, BlackBerry Executive Chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “By providing even stronger cross-platform capabilities our customers will not have to compromise on their choice of operating systems, deployment models or any level of privacy and security.”