Behalf, a commercial payment startup which specializes in providing small businesses instant point of sale terms at vendors of their choice, announced it raised a $27 million Series C round.
The round was led by Viola Growth, an Israel-based venture capital fund that focuses on investing in global companies in their expansion phases. Additional investors in the round include Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, MissionOG, and Vintage.
While small business often need a bit of extra capital to expand, Behalf offers small businesses loans at the point of sale, with funds immediately released to settle the transaction. The company provides an attractive alternative to more traditional lenders who want to charge high interest rates on loans that banks aren’t interested in. This leaves SMB owners with high rates and only a few months to reimburse lenders, and ultimately constrains business purchasing and SMB growth.
Behalf offers a solution to this problem through on-demand access to working capital that helps suppliers and their customers do more business. Once approved by Behalf, SMB customers can use their loan to make purchases at any supplier. For every advance paid to a supplier by Behalf, the customer creates their ideal weekly, monthly or one-time payment plan, extending up to six months.
“SMBs are the unsung heroes of the US economy, producing nearly half of the US’ goods and services, responsible for two out of every three new jobs created, and generating the majority of innovation in the process. Yet, they are severely constrained by lack of access to working capital and their financial needs are not a focus area for traditional banks,” said Benjy Feinberg, Co-founder and CEO of Behalf, in a statement. “Behalf has a simple solution, driven by data and technology, that allows us to provide well-priced and flexible credit tools to help SMBs and their suppliers grow profitably. The addition of Viola’s leadership to our team and the growth this round will fund will both help us accelerate our mission.”
Behalf is planning on using the funding to rapidly scale growth through increased investment in sales, business development and marketing. The company also plans to continue to develop its product while becoming a service leader in small business purchase financing.
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