Billhop, a Swedish company that enables businesses and individuals to pay their invoices by credit card, has closed a €4 million Series A round from fintech VC Element Ventures. The new funding will go to product development and growing the team, particularly sales and marketing. The Stockholm-based startup spotted a disconnect in the B2B payments space. While many suppliers don’t accept cards due to processing fees and the administration involved, not all SMEs, sole traders or even corporates have the cash (or other liquid assets) to settle their invoices. So the team built a platform where users make a card payment, and the startup transfers funds to the recipient. Billhop has a flat 2.95 percent service charge for each transaction. The solution is attractive to more than just business owners. Card issuers promote Billhop to increase transaction volumes, says CFO and co-founder Ingemar Sjögren, and even more so in the pandemic. “The pandemic has led to massive reductions in Travel & Entertainment spend traditionally comprising the bulk of corporate card spend. It has forced commercial card issuers to find new avenues to stimulate card volumes,” he explains. Founded in 2011, the company has boomed especially since launching its corporate offering about two years ago. Transactions have multiplied by five, payment volume exceeded €270 million last year — and the success led Deloitte to award Billhop as Sweden’s ‘most disruptive innovator’ in 2020.
Michael McFadgen, who led the investment by Element Ventures, commented: “Billhop has already made fantastic progress helping their customers efficiently access financing and liquidity, having grown organically since launch, and it will prove even more crucial as businesses of all sizes navigate the turbulent market conditions ahead."
Photo: Ingemar Sjögren (CFO), Sebastian Andreescu (CEO) and Erik Malm (CTO)
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