Proprietary straight-through processing (STP) payments platform Billhop – which provides businesses process and capital efficiencies based on credit card infrastructure – has acquired €10.5 million in capital, via a round led by EQT Ventures along with contributions from Element Ventures (currently awaiting SFSA approval).
The proceeds will be used to scale operations – including recruiting new talent (with a focus on tech and marketing positions), customer acquisition, and geographical expansion.
Credit cards enable consumers to benefit from the interest-free credit period until the card statement is due, while providing a seamless user experience (UX). This has resulted in payment cards becoming one of the most preferred methods of performing transactions, with B2C card acceptance hitting around 99% in certain markets.
On the B2B side, card acceptance is fractional across the globe – suppliers do not want to set up the card acceptance infrastructure needed, and they also don’t want to pay the processing charges associated with taking commercial card payments. That’s why the most common B2B payment method is bank-to-bank transfers (in certain markets), cheques, or wire transfers.
As mentioned in the update, Billhop currently manages the entire payment process for its business clients without having to onboard the firm’s vendors. Vendors need not change anything in their existing accounts receivables process. They just need to get paid directly into their regular bank account via a bank-to-bank transfer. Firms can benefit from the simplified processes and various opportunities to optimize working capital.
The B2B payment market is reportedly valued at $120 trillion. However, it’s mostly untapped by credit cards because of the low card acceptance within B2B. Meanwhile, Billhop reports that it has seen steady growth by creating wins for the card industry, which includes card schemes, acquirers, and commercial issuers – offering access to the B2B vertical, without cannibalizing other products and without any extra implementation or investment needed.
Co-founded by Sebastian Andreescu (CEO), Erik Malm (CTO) and Ingemar Sjögren (CFO) in Stockholm, Sweden, Billhop serves more than 20 different markets, catering to Fortune 500 enterprise clients across Europe; and sole traders and SMEs based in the UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland and Finland.
Operating with a team of 19 professionals, 65,000 clients have been onboarded and Billhop maintains strategic industry relationships, working with large card payment networks and global commercial issuers.
At present, Billhop handles €250 million in transaction volumes yearly. In 2021, Billhop doubled its team, including important hires from Stockholm’s pool of talent in Fintech and payments.
Sebastian Andreescu, CEO and Co-founder at Billhop, stated:
“We have seen a very strong product market fit in the last 12 months and the investment from EQT Ventures further accelerates our plan of becoming the preferred payments partner for businesses of all sizes across Europe. We are also particularly happy about having Ashley join our board of directors, as her proven track record and expertise will be of great value for us as we now enter into an ambitious scale-up phase.”
Ashley Lundström, Partner at EQT Ventures, remarked:
“At EQT Ventures we are keen to back founders tackling large markets seeing large changes, particularly when there are win-wins. The payment industry globally has seen a proliferation of choice in B2C payments, and we are excited to back Billhop as they bring long awaited innovations to B2B payments.”