With turbulent economies, companies are looking for more revenue streams to survive, and one obvious way to increase revenues is to streamline costs. Given companies can often use both manual processing and sometimes even more than one external tool to manage B2B payments, this is an obvious area in which to improve efficiency. A good example of this trend is Toast, which historically started as a POS for restaurants, but later realized it could incorporate other kinds of B2B payments.
This is essentially the idea behind Berlin-based Monite. The startup offers an API, allowing invoicing and supplier management to be embedded into existing payments interfaces. This, the startup claims, allows companies to establish new revenue channels by increasing SaaS pricing bundles and charging processing fees for payments on their platform.
It would appear to be in the right spot. According to recent projections, the B2B payments market is expected to soar to $200 trillion by 2028.
Monite has now closed a $5 million seed round led by New York’s Third Prime. Also participating was S16, Audeo Ventures and Long Run Capital. The investment follows a $5 million round led by Point72 Ventures in early 2022 and brings Monite’s total funding to $10 million.
Monite says it has also received backing from Nium founder Prajit Nanu; Penta co-founder Igor Kuschnir; Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson; Mollie founder Adriaan Mol; ex-PayPal senior executive Phil Valka; and Plaid executive Jason Pate.
Ivan Maryasin, co-founder and CEO of Monite, said in a statement: “Only 5-10% of SMBs use a modern finance stack, while 79% of them still do their accounts payable manually. SMBs remain technically underserved, while B2B neobanks, eCommerce and B2B SaaS businesses have an incredible opportunity here to grow their revenue with no additional marketing expenses. Digitalizing finance workflows through existing SaaS players is a game-changer, and we allow our clients to become an all-in-one financial OS for their industry.”
Mike Kim, partner at Third Prime, added: “From a demand perspective, there’s a real gap for Monite to fill. Monite’s innovative approach to B2B payments automation through better contextual distribution has the potential to revolutionize a market that has been historically resistant to innovation by streamlining payment processes and eliminating the headaches of manual processing.”
Currently, Monite says it has has 10 clients in Europe and the U.S. and plans to close more deals in the next few months.