Payoneer Expands Data Capabilities With Spott Acquisition

Payments platform Payoneer has acquired Israeli startup Spott to enhance its data capabilities.

The purchase, announced Thursday (Aug. 3), will help Payoneer better understand its small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers and help them expand their operations, the company said in a news release.

“Harnessing Spott’s capabilities, Payoneer will analyze large sets of data to apply advanced AI models and make predictions and decisions about its service offerings for a global SMB customer base,” Payoneer said. “The first application of the technology will be on the Payoneer working capital products to enhance underwriting capabilities.”

Based in Tel Aviv, Spott — according to its LinkedIn page — offers insurance to the eCommerce sector and, per the news release, uses AI to accurately “surface, assess, and quantify” data for faster and better-informed business decisions.

The deal brings the company’s technology to SMBs in 190 countries, the release said. Spott’s co-founders, CEO Amit Batzir and CTO Roma Bronstein will join Payoneer’s Technology team, which is also based in Israel.

This is happening as SMBs are facing a tougher and tougher time getting their hands on working capital and other forms of financing.

According to the 2023 PYMNTS report “Main Street Health Q2 2023: Credit’s Key Role in SMBs’ Plans,” 40% of SMBs said they felt heightened apprehension about inflation compared to the previous year. And 15% of SMBs reported a rising concern over declining revenues.

“Given these findings, access to finance emerges as a crucial factor for businesses to consider,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “To solve for this, SMBs often resort to using personal credit cards since traditional business credit fails to meet their needs.”

With the deal, Payoneer becomes the latest in a series of businesses tapping into the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist its customer base.

For example, as covered here Thursday, the technology is changing the conversation around chatbots, which have “been clunkily automating customer engagements” for years.

“But the conversational support tools never really had that ‘wow’ factor,” PYMNTS wrote. “For as long as they’ve been helping firms cut support center costs, it was always apparent that on the other side of the conversation was a nascent, inflexible algorithm best suited to A-to-B requests and incapable of any sort of sophisticated or nuanced conversation.”

Now, however, rapid developments in generative AI have given chatbots a reboot.