Dutch B2B Payments Firm Sprinque Raises $6.5M

Amsterdam-based B2B payments platform Sprinque hopes to expand following a $6.5 million funding round.

While it initially targeted merchants in Spain, Germany, and its home country, Sprinque now hopes to expand to other countries and offer assistance to companies amid a rise in B2B (business-to-business) eCommerce, the company said in a Monday (Jan. 16) news release.

The seed funding round follows a $2 million fundraise by Sprinque in 2021, and comes as B2B firms are increasingly looking for ways to simplify payments.

“A key challenge to enabling online B2B transactions is that buyers expect to receive an invoice for their purchases and buyers are accustomed to receiving net payment terms of 15, 30, or 60 days, or longer, for their invoice,” Sprinque said in the release.

But with online transactions, suppliers don’t have face-to-face meetings with buyers, leading to reluctance to begin production, ship products, or provide services without knowing they’ll be paid upfront, the company added.

Sprinque says it helps B2B merchants improve both conversion and retention by taking on all defaults and fraud risk, as well as automating the Pay by Invoice process.

“We’ve identified this problem across every B2B industry,” Sprinque Co-founder and CEO Juan Espinosa said in the release.

“Buyers won’t convert and be retained if the ability to Pay by Invoice is not given to them, but the existing offline and manual processes B2B merchants rely on are not adequate to manage risk and serve hundreds of online buyers across multiple geographies.”

The launch comes as small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly seeking simplified payments, as PYMNTS research has shown. Retail SMBs are eager to explore tech that improves accounts receivable, especially as they apply to cross-border transactions and unified platforms that help them do more with less profitably.

PYMNTS’ study found that 80% of financial institutions believe their digital payment solutions are very or extremely effective in dealing with friction in cross-border B2B payments. Some 93% are very or extremely willing to add technology that makes B2B payments feel more like business-to-consumer (B2C) payments for their corporate customers.

PYMNTS research has also shown that more than 8 in 10 businesses (85%) have recently upped their use or acceptance of digital payments.

“The more digitally automated and centralized an organization’s B2B processes are, the more payments get sent reliably, efficiently and in the expected manner,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month. “When that happens, company leaders are more likely to report they’re satisfied with their accounts payable platforms — and the more satisfied their suppliers and vendors are, too.”