It’s been a while, but B2B financial services has finally seen a hefty dose of action from venture capitalists. Small business funders, Software-as-a-Service providers, enterprise resource planners and eProcurement players nabbed their share of more than $300 million placed by venture capitalists this past week. Plus, the B2B startup space also got its latest unicorn. Find out who earned the coveted status and how the venture capital got divvied up in our B2B venture capital breakdown below.
Mambu
Germany-based Mambu is still young, but the company, which provides banking Software-as-a-Service to financial institutions, is in no shortage of support. On Monday (Jan. 11), the company revealed that it most recently secured about $8.7 million from Acton Capital Partners and CommerzVentures to continue expanding its service suite.
“We are building out the product and onboarding customers in multiple geographies and are excited that this new capital will allow us to deploy faster and better support [for] our global client base as we continue to enable the next generation of banking service providers,” said Mambu CEO Eugene Danilkis in a statement.
This geographical expansion will focus on Asia and the Americas, Danilkis said, adding that the firm will continue to focus its growth on bringing digital-first banking to its FI customers.
Shopclues
Tuesday (Jan. 12) brought the B2B world another unicorn with the funding provided to Shopclues, a B2B and B2C eCommerce firm that raised an undisclosed sum from backers, including Singapore’s federal sovereign wealth fund GIC, Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners.
While the amount raised was not made public, unnamed sources said the company raised nearly $150 million, meaning Shopclues is now valued at more than $1 billion — the seventh startup in India to reach unicorn status, according to reports. Analysts believe the funding is also part of the firm’s probable IPO.
Shopclues first launched as a B2B platform in 2014 for businesses to procure goods online, making it one of only a select few in India with a B2B focus. Since, the platform has launched SME funding, logistics and payment services for the businesses that use its site. And while Shopclues also operates in the B2C eCommerce space, the company said it would use the latest financing in B2B fashion: helping small businesses get online and digitizing their operations.
Taulia
Supply chain finance and supplier management firm Taulia kicked off 2015 with fresh funding, and now it’s back for round two — or, in this case, round E. The company announced Thursday (Jan. 14) that it secured $46 million in Series E funding thanks to Souk Capital, along with other strategic and institutional investors, the company said.
In a statement, Taulia CEO Cedric Bru said the backing will “further accelerate its rapid expansion” in the areas of electronic invoicing, supplier management and supplier financing.
“With the extensive global experience of our investors, we are in the best position to fuel the next stage of Taulia’s explosive growth,” Bru added.
The venture capital was also announced simultaneously with the news that John Varughese has been named the firm’s new CFO.
Anaplan
That same day, another B2B firm rolled out a dual announcement. Cloud-based enterprise planning firm Anaplan revealed $90 million in fresh funding, spearheaded by Premji, among others, while also announcing its own new CFO, James Budge.
“Anaplan is a game-changer because it enables companies to not only make processes faster and easier but also fundamentally change the way their people work and make decisions,” Premji Invest Partner and Lead U.S. Investor Sandesh Patnam said in a statement about the Software-as-a-Service company.
According to reports, Anaplan will continue to expand globally with the money raised as it links businesses to its finance, supply chain, sales and other enterprise planning and modeling services.
Boomerang Commerce
Thursday (Jan. 14) reports also said Shasta Ventures led a $12 million funding round for Commerce-as-a-Service firm Boomerang Commerce. The Series B investment also saw contributions from Madrona Venture Group and Trinity Ventures, according to reports. Boomerang provides retailers with pricing services, using machine learning to optimize their pricing against the competition and improve margins and overall finances.
A big part of the firm is data, as it links its corporate clients to analytics often only available to major companies, like Amazon. Boomerang CEO Guru Hariharan told reporters for TechCrunch that the funding will be used to propel the recent traction it’s gained in the market following the $8.5 million Series A funding that occurred in 2014. “We made significant progress on executing our vision to build the nerve center of retail that augments the art of retail with data science,” the CEO stated.
A Healthy Week
It was an unusually healthy week for B2B venture capitalism, with funding spread throughout Europe, the U.S. and Asia, amounting to more than $300 million. Analysts have pointed to the declining volume of venture capital being placed into FinTech startups, a potential unicorn bubble about to burst and a slowdown in VC fund closures — not exactly the most optimistic way to start off 2016. But for now, these B2B startups will enjoy their surprisingly lucrative week.
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