PayPal alum raises $56 million for fintech startup Balance
One of the technology sectors that received the biggest shocks in 2022 has been fintech. The sector, which was responsible for many of Israel’s new unicorns in recent years, struggled to maintain momentum, with many companies seeing their valuations plummet, while others canceled or suspended planned funding rounds. However, that is not the case for startup Balance, which has developed a B2B marketplace and e-commerce payments platform, which announced on Tuesday that it has raised $56 million in a Series B funding round.
The round was led by Forerunner with support from Salesforce Ventures, Hubspot Ventures, Lyra Ventures and Gramercy Ventures. Notable B2B e-commerce leaders also participated in the round as angel investors, including former Shopify CMO Jeff Wisener, Faire CTO and co-founder Marcelo Cortes, as well as previous investors Ribbit Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Avid Ventures, Upwest and Jibe. Balance has raised $87 million to date.
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Balance co-founders Bar Geron (CEO) and Yoni Shuster (CTO),
(Photo: Balance)
Founded in 2020 by PayPal alumni Bar Geron (CEO) and Yoni Shuster (CTO), Balance has developed a B2B e-commerce payment platform that offers an online checkout with omni-channel support built for businesses. With Balance, companies can process all payment methods, offer flexible terms and get paid immediately. With offices in Tel Aviv and New York City, Balance has partnered with dozens of B2B marketplaces to move traditionally offline industries such as food, steel, chemicals and apparel to an e-commerce model similar to B2C. Balance has over 300 merchants, marketplaces and customers combined, including Notch, Everywhere Apparel, Bryzos, Felux, Vallourec and more, as well as partnerships with Shopify Plus, Fabric and Magento.
Balance employs around 60 people and will use the funding to accelerate recruitment for its R&D center in Israel and New York office.
Geron told Calcalist that despite the current crisis in the markets, there was a lot of interest in the company’s round and the valuation, which he would not disclose, grew significantly. “While we focus on B2B e-commerce payments, every payment company is competition for us,” Geron told Calcalist. “We help industries that have until now sold their products the old-fashioned way to sell them on a marketplace and receive payment regardless. We employ approximately 60 people and have raised over $90 million and have no intention of acting recklessly. We’ll continue to recruit more staff because we want to grow, but we’re not going to raise more funds anytime soon.”
“For years, the consumer has led the charge to modernize how we shop, but innovation in B2B commerce has lagged far behind the B2C space,” said Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner. “There is incredible potential to modernize broad aspects of how B2B commerce is conducted in the digital age, and the market opportunity is enormous – only 7% of the $120T B2B payment volume is conducted digitally today.”
