DeFi Player Paystand Raises $50M To Digitize B2B Payments

Paystand, a payments company for businesses that works to reduce transaction costs by relying on blockchain technology, has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round, according to a press release.

The funding nearly doubles Paystand’s capital raised, the release stated. The round was led by NewView Capital. NewView’s Jazmin Medina is set to join Paystand’s board of directors as a result of the investment.

Other investors in the round were SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund, King River Capital, Industrious Ventures and Transform Capital, according to the release.

The new investment “reflects the company’s triple-digit growth as it leads the movement for an open commercial finance system,” the release stated.

Describing its value proposition, Paystand stated in the release that it “breaks the traditional payment model by automating the entire cash lifecycle so businesses can unlock cashless, feeless, intuitive payments.”

According to release, the company uses the Ethereum blockchain to operate what it calls the Paystand Bank Network, “a digital, highly secure B2B payment network with zero fees.”

The release further stated: “Rather than charging a traditional percentage fee on each transaction, Paystand delivers a Payments-as-a-Service subscription model so businesses can scale without incurring significant fee-per-transaction costs that penalize growth.”

“[Decentralized finance (DeFi)] and blockchain represent the largest shift in our economy in over a generation,” Paystand Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Almond said in the release. “B2B payments can now happen instantly and securely as money has become software; yet, most finance teams are still mired in paper, manual processes and fees. With this new funding, Paystand is uniquely positioned to bring the benefits of blockchain to commercial payments so businesses can be more agile and competitive in the post-pandemic landscape. Our vision is to create an open financial infrastructure that delivers a self-driving money experience for businesses and provides radically better economics for the industry overall.”

NewView’s Medina said in the release: “Paystand has been quietly rebooting commercial payments since 2013. In the same way that the EV industry re-thought the automobile to permanently move society away from fossil fuels, Paystand is creating an entirely new system for B2B payments — not simply laying a digital facade over broken plumbing.”