Balance, the payments experience platform for B2B e-commerce, reveals that it has acquired $25 million in capital through a Series A round that was led by Ribbit Capital, along with contributions from Avid Ventures as well as existing investors Lightspeed Ventures, Stripe, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, SciFi VC and UpWest.
As mentioned in a release, Jacqueline Reses (formerly Head of Square Capital), and early employees and executives from Square, Plaid, Coinbase, Stripe, and PayPal contributed to Balance’s investment round as well.
As stated in the announcement, retail digital commerce firms like Amazon and Shopify have created expectations amongst consumers for a “seamless online checkout experience with flexible terms, payment methods and transparent pricing.”
Even though these expectations have been set, 92% of B2B transactions are still settled offline, “representing over $2T (more than 2x retail eCommerce),” the announcement revealed.
But this appears to changing quickly – a very large number of B2B marketplaces and eCommerce businesses have begun to emerge and are “accelerating the shift of B2B sourcing and trade from offline to online, but they have lacked the dedicated B2B payments solutions necessary to delight and retain their customers,” the release noted.
Given these key trends, B2B merchants are “feeling immense pressure to improve their online checkout experiences,” the announcement revealed.
As stated in the release:
“Balance is meeting this market need with the first consumer-like B2B checkout platform for merchants and marketplaces. The company’s checkout platform provides flexibility and control for all parties involved: buyers enjoy the choice of payment methods including ACH, Wire, and Checks as well as real-time net terms at checkout.”
Merchants are able to get immediate payout which is “always reconciled like with credit cards; and marketplaces are enabled with automated vendor disbursement, a full compliance umbrella, and reconciliation management,” the announcement explained.
International B2B trade being done mainly offline is “resulting in high cost of living and economic inefficiencies, worldwide. We are at the very early innings of a massive shift from offline to online, across industries,” according to Bar Geron, Balance founder & CEO.
Geron added:
“Our goal is to facilitate this transition with an amazing transaction experience for businesses and suppliers, making it a no-brainer for every B2B business to start selling online. We’re happy to share an aligned vision regarding the future of global B2B trade with Ribbit Capital and all our backers and partners, and are excited to have this impressive group join us to continue enhancing our customers’ payment experience.”
There’s $130T of international B2B trade that’s “inevitably coming online,” according to Jordan Angelos, GP at Ribbit Capital.
Angelos remarked:
“Balance’s checkout and payments infrastructure gives ecommerce businesses a purpose-built toolkit to facilitate this transition. We’re energized by Balance’s mission and excited to become partners.”
Balance is reportedly working with digital commerce firms such as BigCommerce (powering its B2B edition “to enable merchants to build their self serve checkout”), and Magento, a B2B eCommerce agency, and “soon to include Salesforce.”
Balance’s client base includes startups, publicly traded marketplaces and digital commerce enterprises across industries like steel, freight, construction, food ordering, medical supply, and apparel.