Monite, a startup based in Berlin, has followed a $5 million round of seed money, announced in February 2022, with another $5 million for its embedded business-to-business (B2B) payments platform.
The latest round of funding was initially reported by TechCrunch.
The startup’s offering handles invoicing and supplier management through an API that is embedded into existing interfaces. The idea is to open up revenue channels by streamlining costs through automation.
Who’s Backing Monite
The most recent seeding round was led by Third Prime of New York, with participation from S16, Audeo Ventures, and Long Run Capital. The previous $5 million round was led by Point72 Ventures.
In a statement put out by Monite, CEO and co-founder Ivan Maryasin pointed toward the opportunity his company sees: “Only 5-10% of SMBs (small businesses) use a modern finance stack, while 79% of them still do their accounts payable manually. … Digitalizing finance workflows through existing SaaS players is a game-changer, and we allow our clients to become an all-in-one OS for their industry.”
Monite said it has about 10 clients, based in Europe and the United States, with more deals expected to close in the coming months.
Finding Investment in a Tough Environment
The successful seeding round is all the more impressive because it was realized at a time when access to capital has grown tight.
Christopher Miller, Javelin Strategy & Research Lead Analyst for Emerging Payments, explored this environment in a recent report, Fintech Investment in a Changing Market: 5 Things to Know for 2023. Miller noted that untested, unproven startups would face tougher sledding, with investors putting their emphasis on products that could come out of the chutes ready to hit the market and drive profit.
Michael Kim, a partner at Third Prime, the lead investor in the most recent round of fundraising, said Monite fits that bill. “From a demand perspective, there’s a real gap for Monite to fill,” he said, according to the TechCrunch article. “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.”
