Behalf, a payments platform targeted at small and mid-sized businesses, announced a Series B equity round and credit facility totaling $119M. MissionOG, an early to growth stage venture capital firm chaired by Gene Lockhart, the former CEO of MasterCard, led the equity round. Lockhart is joining the board of Behalf. Victory Park Capital (VPC) provided a credit facility in addition to contributing to the equity round. Maverick Ventures as well as past investors Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital also participated.
Behalf will use the new funds to grow its team and increase the number and size of working capital lines it offers. Along with the funding, Behalf announced the opening of its New York City headquarters in the Flatiron District.
Behalf provides simple working capital lines to small businesses to help bridge the cash flow gap between having to pay a vendor for a purchase and the time it takes to generate revenue from that purchase. To cover this gap, Behalf pays an SMB’s vendor invoice, at a value of up to $25,000 per purchase, and the SMB then pays Behalf back in up to 150 days. The SMB receives favorable rates and terms and benefits from increased working capital. Vendors benefit from more rapid cash flow and increased sales while reducing the cost of fraud, credit losses, account management and collections.
Benjy Feinberg, CEO of Behalf, stated:
“With this latest round of funding, we plan to increase both the pace of our product development and the size of our working capital lines. Using our credit facility provided by VPC will enable us to serve more vendors and SMB customers, especially in the industries where we have seen the most traction. We are also extremely excited to have Gene Lockhart added to our board. He and his team bring immense knowledge of the B2B payments space and are already proving to be active and helpful investors.”
Gene Lockhart, chairman of MissionOG, explained:
“We are excited about the Behalf team and the opportunity in front of them. Most important, their solution provides a very compelling and necessary service to a segment of the market that continues to represent great value and promise. We look forward to working with Behalf to help achieve their goals.”
Tom Welch, principal at VPC, added:
“Behalf is approaching SMB finance in a very unique way and is working to fill a clear void in the marketplace. In addition to solving the SMBs’ working capital issues, Behalf also provides added value to the vendor and supplier side of the equation, which should serve to fuel growth over the near term.”
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