A $95M Payday For B2B Startups

With $95 million injected into B2B startups over the last week, venture capitalists had their purse strings loose. But which industry scored the most dough?

Small business banking, cross-border corporate payments and Big Data management all landed on the board with seed funding, while Software-as-a-Service scored an impressive $30 million. But it was another segment that nabbed the biggest slice of investment this week. Think: high-tech crime.

SMB Banking

Tide

Tide isn’t a bank, but it wants to accelerate banking for SMBs. The company says it’s the “world’s first” mobile-first banking solution, helping small businesses get set up with a bank account more quickly than its rivals.

Based in the U.K., Tide allows small business owners to set up their accounts via mobile device by scanning an ID and nixes monthly or setup fees. In all, Tide says it can land a bank account with an SMB in three minutes or less.

On Monday (July 25), Tide announced a $2 million seed funding round from Passion Capital, LocalGlobe and others. With the funds, it will look to expand its service offering. Today, it offers accounting and expense management but expects to expand into FX and payment services in the future, reports said.

Software-as-a-Service

Vena Solutions

The Software-as-a-Service space may be dominated by cloud ERP solutions, but Vena Solutions offers corporate performance management. And, it seems, venture capitalists are backing the startup in its offering.

Vena announced a $30 million funding round on Monday, thanks to Centana Growth Partners. The company automates financial and other business processes typically dominated by manual Excel spreadsheets. Based in Silicon Valley, Vena said it will use the funding to continue its track record of surpassing 100 percent yearly growth for the last five years. It also said it will invest in product development, partnerships, sales, marketing and more and expand its team across the globe.

Cross-Border Payments

Airwallex

A $3 million pre-Series A funding round will boost Airwallex‘s ability to offer both consumers and businesses a more streamlined cross-border payments solution. The company, based in Australia and China, will focus on R&D with the new funding, which was provided by VC Gobi Partners of China. Gravity VC and angel investors also participated in the round.

Reports on Tuesday (July 26) said Airwallex provides payment collection, foreign exchange, remittance and security settlement services through its integrated solutions offerings. Its cofounder and CEO, Jack Zhang, told reporters that existing international payment solutions are “expensive, clunky and time-consuming.”

“Airwallex breaks down these barriers to empower businesses to build stronger global trading partnerships and truly tackle the world stage,” he added.

Cybersecurity

SafeBreach

A healthy $15 million will help corporate cybersecurity startup SafeBreach provide businesses with a way to identify and combat cyberthreats. Reports on Tuesday said SafeBreach takes the point of view of the cyberattacker to identify security holes and lapses within the enterprise. The company generates “war games” to simulate a cyberattack on a company’s systems and test its capabilities of surviving such an attack.

The Israel-founded company is now based in the U.S. The $15 million in Series A funding was led by existing backers Sequoia Capital and Shlomo Kramer. Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder and Maverick Ventures also participated, reports said. SafeBreach will use the funds to expand research and development, sales and marketing.

PhishMe

Employees can oftentimes pose a security threat to their own companies, but they can also be the first line of attack in identifying outside threats. PhishMe uses the employee as a tool to identify and thwart cyberattacks by educating them to identify phishing emails — a major cyberproblem for businesses, as criminals send fraudulent emails requesting fake supplier payments.

On Thursday (July 28), PhishMe announced a $42.5 million Series C investment round, led by Paladin Capital Group; Bessemer Venture Partners also participated, reports said. The company helps employees spot questionable emails and report them to internal security teams for further investigation.

Big Data

Reflect

It’s one thing for a company to be able to aggregate its data and generate reports; it’s another for a company to be able to understand what that company needs. Startup Reflect wants to help in this regard by providing data visualization solutions for Software-as-a-Service companies to integrate into their own B2B offerings.

On Tuesday, the company announced a $2.5 million seed funding round led by DFJ, with participation from others. According to Reflect, companies are already sitting on troves of data from the users of their services. The startup, based in the U.S., says it wants to provide data visualization for these software developers.

“Every company with a database is a potential customer,” stated CEO Alex Bilmes.