FinTech Paid has secured £2.2 million seed funding.
The Darlington-headquartered firm is launching to help enterprises transform supplier management with a ‘next-generation’ procurement platform.
The round was led by Crane Venture Partners with participation from Seedcamp, Techstars and notable angel investors, including Angel Invest Ventures’ Jens Lapinski, GoCardless and Nested Founder Matthew Robinson, Outrun Ventures founder Chris Adelsbach – in a personal capacity – and former Microsoft head of corporate strategy Charles Songhurst.
Since the start of COVID-19, 97% of businesses have experienced some form of supply chain disruption, according to Paid.
It says diversification of suppliers and supply chain management can allow businesses to remain resilient, reduce costs and support their small– and long-tail suppliers who are struggling to survive.
Co-founder and CEO Tom Howsam said: “Every SME who has ever dealt with large enterprises knows the pain and the time it takes to do even a simple thing like onboarding as a supplier, signing a contract, or getting paid on time.
“What they may not know is that that frustration is usually shared by the enterprise buyer, whose internal, one-size fits all process means they can’t move quickly.”
Paid’s software transforms the procure-to-pay process, enabling efficient onboarding, project scoping, sign–off and invoicing.
It claims its software platform is simple to implement, allowing enterprises to get up and running in days and onboard suppliers in 10 minutes.
At launch, Paid is live with BT, which spends billions annually to manage tens of thousands of suppliers.
Cyril Pourrat, Chief Procurement Officer at BT, commented: “Companies, including BT, can incur huge costs when onboarding and managing suppliers. We needed a better, more agile way to manage our suppliers and Paid solves that problem, offering us a way to save man-hours and money in one easy-to-use solution.
“Paid, who are part of BT’s Procurement Digital Garage, has managed to reduce these costs, providing an easy and efficient way to work with smaller suppliers.”
Paid was founded in late 2018 and participated in the Barclays London Accelerator, powered by Techstars, in January 2019.
It also has a base in London and employs six people. With the new funding, Paid aims to double its team by the end of the year, hiring product, engineering and customer success team members as it grows its customer base.
Jeremy Roche, founder of FinancialForce and Paid’s new chairman, added: “What really excites me about Paid is the way the team has built a comprehensive platform to solve a complex, real-world problem that every enterprise faces – how to handle their long tail procure-to-pay process in a cost-effective way, allowing them to access the most innovative suppliers quickly and easily.
“This is the most intuitively designed solution I have seen to minimise effort for both enterprise buyers and their SME suppliers, removing friction from the procurement process and maximising benefits for both sides of the transaction.”