Today in B2B: Embedded Finance Gaining Popularity; Nakad Raises $7M in Seed Funding

Today in B2B payments, Pemo launches an all-in-one spend management platform, while Westpac and 10x launch a transaction banking platform. Plus, JABU gets $15 million for Namibia B2B eCommerce and new Fundbox Flex Visa helps SMBs manage their spending and access working capital.

10x, Westpac Unveil Transaction Banking Platform

FinTech 10x Banking is expanding its relationship with banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform Westpac via the launch of a transaction banking platform for the bank’s institutional clients, according to a Thursday (May 26) press release.

“The banking industry is experiencing a radical change, and Westpac is taking a leading role in its transformation,” said Antony Jenkins, CBE, founder, chairman and CEO of 10x Banking. “Using our technology to underpin the new platform is a logical next step in its move to cloud-native technology. At 10x, we’ve built the technology I always dreamed of when I was running businesses in banking.”

10x Banking has clients in three continents, including those after last year’s launch of Westpac’s BaaS offering.

“Our clients are on the digital transformation journey and are looking for ways to use data to improve working capital,” said Jeff Byrne, managing director of global transaction services at Westpac. “We want to empower them by maximizing access to real-time data across a range of sophisticated cash management structures.”

Embedded Finance Gains Ground in B2B

PYMNTS has found that 42% of companies have pointed to a lack of supplier portals — typically third-party platforms that enable them to connect online with their suppliers or vendors — as a pain point in their B2B payment processes.

Our data shows that the workforce is skewing younger — and that, at present, nearly three-quarters of working United States millennials are now involved in their companies’ purchasing, operational and organizational decisions. And increasingly they are taking their cues as to what finance should be like from their daily B2C experiences (there’s that nod to Uber and Amazon again).

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) banking platform Mambu and FinTech Brim Financial teamed up on a digital banking, deposit, lending and cards platform across the U.S. and Canada.  Those joint efforts would enable virtual cards and digital payments including Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, to be integrated with Mambu’s platform. Elsewhere, FinTech Alviere is partnering with card issuer Marqeta in a bid to enable enterprises to issue branded cards to their end users.

New Visa, Fundbox Flex Debit Card Helps SMBs Manage Spend, Access Working Capital

In an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Visa head of innovation and digital partnerships Vanessa Colella said that getting a small- or medium-sized business off the ground and thriving remains no easy task. Although SMBs employ just under half of the U.S. workforce and drive overall gross domestic product (GDP), they tend to run into serious operational challenges.

More than 80% of the companies that don’t make it fail because they are unable to manage cash, Colella said.

Cash flow visibility, in turn, is critical for knowing the state of working capital, the cushion that helps operations hum. Increasingly, she told Webster, smaller companies are moving toward managing their payables and covering expenses digitally — beyond the traditional confines of automated clearing house (ACH) payments, credit cards and even checks.

Supply Chain Financing Startup Nakad Raises $7M

Supply chain financing provider Nakad has raised $7 million as part of its seed funding round, Economic Times of India reported. The new funds will be used for scaling its presence and boosting its employee head count, adding people in technology, product, customer success and business development.

Nakad, which was founded in January, provides working capital credit for the small suppliers of corporate vendors. The company uses its platform MicroBill to tokenize invoices from the small- to midsize enterprise (SME) and help them get working capital.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Ujwal Kalra has said the mission for supply chain financing companies is often these days to tackle the anchor supplier of the corporations that have options for working capital. So Nakad focuses on the smaller companies where the “real issue of SME financing lies.” Nakad is also looking at rolling out other credit products and building software layers to help SMEs digitize their billing and reconciliation processes.

Namibia’s JABU Gets $15 Million Toward B2B eCommerce

JABU, a Namibia-based startup that dubs itself as a last-mile distribution eCommerce company, has been the recipient of a $15 million Series A round, a Yahoo report said Wednesday (May 25).

JABU works on logistics issues, letting merchants order, stock and pay for products using Jwallet, and then offering same-day delivery. The company also provides data-driven services like sales metrics and agent performances through dashboards.

According to CEO David Akinin, the plan is to build around its Jwallet, which it rolled out as a standalone product. Jwallet’s objective is to use physical cash flows to offer cash withdrawals and deposit services, which is like agency banking, in which human agents act as ATMs to offer financial services in remote areas.

UAE-Based FinTech Pemo Debuts Spend Management Platform

United Arab Emirates FinTech startup Pemo has debuted an all-in-one spend management platform, a press release said Wednesday (May 25).

Pemo’s platform offers invoice payment and expense management services along with corporate cards for small- and midsized businesses (SMBs). It has started onboarding its first UAE-based companies, with some of the features available including digitized invoices, automated approval flows, one-click invoice payments and real-time cash flow monitoring.

Users will also be able to issue physical and virtual prepaid cards for employees. The prepaid cards, through an integration with the Pemo app, will be able to automatically categorize employee expenses, capture receipts for every transaction and offer business owners and management teams more visibility for corporate spending. The new announcement comes as the company got a $12 million in a funding round which was co-led by seed fund Cherry Ventures and Shorooq Partners. Other participants included FinTech Collective, Speedinvest, BY Venture Partners and Antler.