Crowdz Pilots Invoice Crowdfunding Platform InvoiceXchange

B2B invoicing and payments firm Crowdz has announced a new pilot aimed at connecting businesses to crowdfunding services to finance their unpaid invoices.

In a press release sent to PYMNTS Thursday (Jan. 16), Crowdz announced it is rolling out what it claims to be the world’s first invoice financing marketplace, InvoiceXchange, in pilot phase. The platform will enable businesses to auction off their invoices to receive invoice financing, a tool Crowdz said aims to address the pain point of late and unpaid invoices.

Banks and investors can participate in the crowdfunding platform to submit their offers to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which can, in turn, choose the most competitive rate. According to Crowdz, such a service has historically been available only to larger corporates.

“Cash flow is the biggest determining factor for a small business’s success,” said Crowdz CEO and Co-Founder Payson E. Johnston, pointing to the multi-trillion-dollar cost of late payments that SMBs face today. “[SMBs] are the backbone of our economy. Crowdz’s goal is to accelerate [SMB] profitability by enabling access to real-time working capital, so more businesses can flourish.”

In addition to the launch of InvoiceXchange in pilot phase, Crowdz also revealed that it has joined Oracle’s Oracle for Startup programs along with 19 other startups, an initiative in which Oracle will provide resources for businesses to scale up operations.

In 2018, Crowdz announced an investment from Barclays, which had picked Crowdz for its Accelerator program. Last year, Johnston spoke with PYMNTS about the biggest disruptors in B2B payments as corporates shift away from legacy solutions and toward newer technologies like blockchain.

“There are pain points of ‘How do you bring the invoice and the movement of money together?’ — which hasn’t really been solved yet in the B2B payments space,” he said.