NEW YORK — OatFi, a company that provides working capital infrastructure for B2B payments platforms, has landed an $8 million Seed round.
The round was led by QED Investors with participation from existing investors Portage Ventures, Picus Capital and Cambrian Ventures, and the addition of new investors Fin VC, Dash Fund and Lorimer Ventures. Ziv Paz, Cofounder of Melio, also participated in the round. This brings the total funding to $11.25 million, following a $3.25 million pre-seed round co-led by Portage Ventures and Picus Capital earlier this year.
Additionally, OatFi has raised a $50 million credit facility from Architect Capital. OatFi is based in NY and founded by Mike Barbosa and John Jordan in 2021.
OatFi provides the end-to-end infrastructure for B2B payment platforms to launch embedded working capital tools such as buy now pay later (BNPL) or various receivables financing products. These products optimize SMBs’ cashflows by maximizing days payable outstanding – the amount of time it takes to pay its bills – while shortening days sales outstanding – the time it takes to collect money owed.
Almost two-thirds of all businesses in the U.S. still pay by cash or check, including 80 percent of the 32 million SMBs in the country. That accounts for $10 trillion of transaction volume each year.
Through OatFi, platforms can configure their own UX that seamlessly embeds within their existing platform by essentially building their own ‘BNPL’ or receivables financing solution, without launching a credit business.
“Most existing B2B solutions have copy-pasted the BNPL playbook for consumers, but the problems for businesses are much different”, said OatFi CEO Mike Barbosa. “An SMB’s working capital issue could exist on both sides of their cashflow conversion cycle, depending on their relationship with suppliers and customers.
“As platforms bring B2B payments online, we want to solve the problem at the source. Via our flexible infrastructure, B2B payment platforms can embed the desired user experience within their existing product. While a simple widget can work on a consumer checkout page, the product flow for B2B payments is often unique. OatFi provides an API-first infrastructure that empowers our partners to launch their own tools, while we handle the [complex] stuff.”
OatFi integrates with bill pay and invoicing, payments infrastructure and spend management platforms to enable the launch of cashflow tools. By extending due dates on payments owed, or transforming outstanding receivables into immediate cash, OatFi offers a win-win solution for both SMBs with cashflow problems and the B2B payment platforms that want to better serve their users.
