Investors Back Portal Finance’s Multi-Pronged Approach To SMB Finance

Investors this week placed more than $447 million in B2B FinTech startups, with the biggest investment rounds landing at companies that address more than one point of friction.

Take Udaan, for example, an Indian B2B eCommerce startup that plans to use its latest venture capital raised to introduce business financing and warehousing solutions for its corporate customers. There’s also Yoco, a South African company that offers small businesses a point-of-sale solution combined with business performance analytics features and other enterprise software.

One startup, Colombia’s Portal Finance, also signals investors’ appetites for multitasking B2B FinTech startups.

Portal Finance – which recently secured a $200 million commitment from Latin America’s largest financial institution, BTG Pactual – has a multi-pronged approach to linking small businesses to financing. When the company first launched, it began by working with factoring companies, helping them underwrite financing based on projected income from borrowers’ accounts receivable data.

The firm eventually introduced a solution designed for large enterprise companies to help them manage payments to small suppliers, another strategy in supporting SMB cash flow.

Now, the company is working with financial institutions like BTG Pactual, linking them to SMBs’ accounts receivable and other data sources for enhanced underwriting and risk mitigation, as well as the launch of its own lending solution.

The company had previously raised pre-seed and seed funding, and, according to reports, is set to close an additional investment round to the tune of $2.5 million. Portal Finance told reporters it is on track to become profitable by the end of November.

According to reports, BTG’s investment in Portal Finance signals a rising corporate finance and FinTech landscape for Latin America, particularly in Colombia, which is enjoying a bout of economic strength following peace talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).