Amsterdam-based Sprinque, a B2B checkout platform for merchants and marketplaces, announced on Monday, January 16, that it has raised €6M in a Seed round of funding.
The round was led by Connect Ventures, with participation from Kraken Ventures, Inference Partners, and SeedX. Existing investors Antler, Volta Ventures, and Force Over Mass also participated in this round.
Pain points faced by the marketplaces and retailers
Businesses are now quickly moving to online transactions. Despite the fact that B2B e-commerce is currently 5X bigger than B2C e-commerce, marketplaces and retailers still face several difficulties. Buyers expecting invoices for their purchases, and net payment periods of 15, 30, or 60 days or longer for their invoices provide a significant barrier to permitting online B2B transactions.
However, because suppliers and buyers can not physically interact with online transactions, providers are typically hesitant to begin manufacturing, shipping their goods, or offering their services without first receiving payment.
Juan Espinosa, co-founder and CEO of Sprinque, says, “We’ve identified this problem across every B2B industry. Buyers won’t convert and be retained if the ability to Pay by Invoice is not given to them, but the existing offline and manual processes B2B merchants rely on are not adequate to manage risk and serve hundreds of online buyers across multiple geographies. Sprinque has been built to enable merchants and marketplaces to offer Pay by Invoice with payment terms in the most seamless way possible for the most ambitious merchants.”
Flexible B2B payments platform
Founded in 2021 by Juan Espinosa, Manoj Tutika and Mark Holleman, Sprinque’s B2B payments technology enables retailers and marketplaces to provide Pay by Invoice with net payment terms to customers online without assuming additional risk or raising operating costs.
Sprinque claims that its solution helps B2B merchants improve conversion and retention. It is a white-labelled solution that can be incorporated via the merchants’ APIs, Magento, Prestashop, and WooCommerce plugins, or used offline using the company’s Merchant Control Center.
When buyers register for a merchant account or choose “Pay by Invoice” at the checkout, Sprinque conducts a real-time fraud and credit risk assessment (with a +95 per cent acceptance rate). Sprinque gives a revolving credit line to qualified customers, which they can use for various transactions. After eliminating the danger of default, Sprinque then pays the merchant when the last invoice is sent.
Sprinque was also designed to enable any sort of purchasing flow, from simple B2C-style checkout purchases to more complicated enterprise purchasing flows like gated purchasing and quote-to-cash.
Capital utilisation
The company says the funds will help it to expand into the European market, extend capabilities outside of the Pay by Invoice offering, provide risk-sharing solutions, and oversee all payment processes for B2B marketplaces and merchants.
According to Sprinque, the majority of Europe is covered by the company’s buyer coverage, enabling seamless international shopping. Although it is primarily focusing on Dutch, Spanish, and German retailers, the company aims to expand to other nations quickly.
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