• SumUp

  Participated · Equity · Aug 2015

  SumUp is a global fintech that provides payments and business tools to millions of merchants of all sizes. The company has generated positive EBITDA since December 2022 and has delivered over a decade of sustained growth. SumUp says it balances sustainable growth with fiscal responsibility, launching new markets and products while keeping finances under control. Management intends to use new capital to refinance existing debt and to pursue organic and inorganic global growth opportunities. Investor interest was strong and the company reports the round was oversubscribed, which SumUp cites as confirmation of market confidence in its business model. SumUp plans to continue scaling its services and products to provide merchants with tools and best-in-class support experiences. SumUp builds card readers and point-of-sale tools and offers related services such as invoicing, loyalty programs and business accounts to small merchants. The company is planning continued organic expansion of financial services around its hardware and is targeting more geographies beyond the 36 markets where it currently operates. SumUp is also pursuing inorganic growth through M&A, having previously acquired U.S. loyalty startup Fivestars in 2021 to expand services and U.S. presence. The business says it has been "positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022" and reports over 30% year‑over‑year top-line growth. Its customer count is about 4 million, a figure unchanged from two years ago, indicating mixed operational signals. SumUp is a London-based financial technology company led by Marc-Alexander Christ, serving more than 4 million small merchants in over 35 markets. The company offers card terminals and point-of-sale registers, in-person and remote payments, a free business account and card, an online store, and invoicing. Its SumUp Cash Advance product provides merchants with advances of up to £20,000 based on their payment history. Advances are repaid through payment acceptance with SumUp card readers in a flexible, incremental manner. Merchants pay a fixed fee for access to advances and are not charged monthly interest or hidden fees. SumUp says it will use new financing to expand its merchant cash advance product and support UK-based merchants. SumUp started as a maker of card-reader dongles and has expanded into a broader suite of payments and business services used by about 4 million SMBs in 35 markets. The company now employs roughly 3,000 people and offers products including POS payments, online payments, and a business banking product used by about 10% of its customers. SumUp has pursued M&A to build its platform, acquiring companies such as Payleven, Goodtill, Tiller and U.S.-based loyalty startup Fivestars. Management says revenues have grown roughly 60% annually over the last couple of years, while POS payments remain the bulk of revenue. The company is pursuing further product development, hiring and additional acquisitions as it expands into more emerging markets (its most recent launch was Peru) and continues to focus on Europe as its largest geography. SumUp offers physical card readers and a suite of payments services — online payments, invoicing and POS solutions — to merchants, taking a cut of transactions as its primary revenue model. The company operates in 33 countries and serves roughly 3 million businesses. SumUp has grown in part through acquisitions (including Payleven in 2016 and more recent purchases such as Paysolut, Goodtill and Tiller) to expand its product set and geographic footprint. Its stated strategy is to build more services for businesses and scale transaction volume rather than move into consumer-facing financial products or cryptocurrency. The company says it has stable cash flow, which it cited as a reason for choosing debt financing to avoid dilution. SumUp is London-based and was founded in 2012.

• Prosper Marketplace

  Participated · Series D · Apr 2015

  Prosper Marketplace operates a peer-to-peer lending platform and offers a broad product mix including personal loans, a credit card, home equity products, and investment offerings. The company reported strong recent growth, facilitating over $1 billion of personal loan originations in the third quarter (more than 2x year‑over‑year growth). Prosper now has over 150,000 customers for its credit card product, which launched last December, and recently introduced a fixed‑rate home equity loan that complements its existing home equity line of credit. The business says it has helped 1.5 million people to date. Management intends to use new capital to accelerate investments across its products and expand its reach as a financial technology platform. The company frames itself as purpose‑driven and positioned to scale over the coming years. Prosper Marketplace operates an online consumer lending platform that connects borrowers seeking fixed-rate, fixed-term personal loans with individual and institutional investors. Borrowers use the platform for debt consolidation and large purchases, while investors access consumer credit investment opportunities under Prosper’s data-driven underwriting model. Prosper reported monthly loan originations have grown steadily since July 2016 and an estimated net return on January 2017 production of 7.86%. The company has originated over $8 billion in personal loans to date and is focused on diversifying its investor base by bringing new banks and institutional investors onto the platform. Management said the recent deal provides funding stability and capital markets expertise as Prosper aims to grow the marketplace and achieve profitability in 2017. Prosper is a leading US peer-to-peer lending marketplace connecting individual investors with borrowers. The company received a $13 million investment from Russian fund Target Ventures, as reported by Rusbase. The financing was Target Ventures' first U.S. investment and coincided with the fund opening a San Francisco office to manage its U.S. activities. To run those U.S. activities Target Ventures appointed Andrey Kazakov, a former general partner at Foresight Ventures. The article does not provide operating metrics or detailed use of proceeds for Prosper. The report frames the deal within Target Ventures' broader strategy of investing in digital consumer companies abroad. Prosper Marketplace operates an online marketplace for consumer credit that connects people who want to borrow money with people who want to invest. The platform offers a digital application experience intended to simplify unsecured personal loans and reduce wait times compared with traditional channels. Over the past six years more than $3 billion in personal loans have originated through the Prosper platform. The company reported a record quarter with nearly $600 million in loans originated, up 200% year-over-year. The new funding is intended to support continued growth, expansion and the development of a national brand as Prosper builds new products and services for borrowers and investors. Prosper is headquartered in San Francisco and is the parent company of Prosper Funding LLC. Prosper.com operates a U.S. peer-to-peer marketplace connecting individual borrowers and lenders for consumer credit. Launched in 2006, the company was halted by the SEC in 2008 and relaunched in 2009 after resolving registration issues. Under CEO Aaron Vermut and his team, Prosper has focused on product improvements and attracting new lenders and borrowers. Monthly platform originations grew from $9 million in January 2013 to over $100 million in April 2013, and Prosper crossed $1 billion in cumulative loans with plans to hit $2 billion this year. Loan originations grew over 400% year-over-year and were up 30% month-over-month; at the end of April Prosper had a 35% share of the online consumer peer-to-peer lending marketplace. The company says it will remain focused on the consumer credit market and has no plans for an IPO at this time.

• Personal Capital

  Participated · Series D · Oct 2014

  Personal Capital is a digital wealth management company that offers free online tools to aggregate users’ accounts and provide financial clarity alongside advisory services. Led by CEO Jay Shah, the company has launched products such as Smart Withdrawal™, a personalized, tax-efficient retirement withdrawal planner. It recently announced a partnership with Alight Solutions and AllianceBernstein to create WealthSpark™, delivering personalized financial insights to American workers. Personal Capital reports more than $8.5 billion in assets under management and two million registered users, tracking over $650 billion in aggregated account value. The company said it will use the new funding to drive growth, enhance its technology platform, and invest in value-added partnerships. Personal Capital is based in Redwood City, California, and also has hubs in San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta. Personal Capital combines online financial tools with registered financial advisor expertise to help users understand, manage and grow their net worth. Led by CEO Jay Shah, the company offers advisory services alongside its digital platform and has developed a Private Client Service for investors with more than $1 million in investable assets. Those private clients comprise about 40 percent of the company's $4.9 billion in assets under management. The company intends to use new funding to expand product development and marketing and to scale its advisory force across multiple markets including Dallas, Atlanta, New York, greater Los Angeles and Chicago. Personal Capital also plans to expand its offices in San Francisco and Denver. Personal Capital provides award-winning online financial tools and a suite of fee-based wealth‑advisory services that combine digital dashboards with access to accredited financial advisors. Its paid offerings include personalized portfolios, tax‑loss harvesting, diversified asset allocation, systematic rebalancing and advisory support for retirement, college savings, estate planning, home purchases and 401(k) contributions. The company offers its dashboard and tools free to US users while converting a subset into advisory clients. Personal Capital reported more than 1.3 million registered users of its free tools and grew assets under management from about $1.9 billion to over $3.4 billion (an increase of $1.5 billion, or 80%, in under 12 months). Management said the additional capital has been used to expand marketing, hiring and product offerings and to accelerate growth in the number of households served. The company is based in the United States. Personal Capital is an online wealth management platform that combines dedicated financial advisors with client‑facing financial technology. It pairs award‑winning online tools that provide financial transparency with personalized advice from accredited financial advisers. The company is reported to be growing rapidly in the mass‑affluent and high‑net‑worth market segments. Founder and CEO Bill Harris brings more than 25 years of experience in financial technology, including leadership roles at Intuit and PayPal. The article states Personal Capital will benefit from a strategic relationship with IGM Financial, leveraging IGM’s financial‑advice and asset‑management expertise to support its growth. The article does not disclose revenue or user metrics. Personal Capital offers an electronically enabled financial management tool that aggregates users' cash, debts, investments and other holdings to show a full picture of financial health. The core product is free-to-use software, while advisory and investment management services are paid. The company combines technology with human advisors and recently launched a private client service for families with over $1 million in invested assets. Over 600,000 families use Personal Capital’s software and services to track about $100 billion in holdings, though the subset using the firm to manage assets is much smaller. The private client service now accounts for over a quarter of the company’s business. Management says capital from the new round will be used to roll out additional products and services such as mortgages and other financial tools.

• Taulia

  Participated · Series D · Sep 2014

  Taulia is a US-based fintech founded in 2009 that provides working-capital and supply-chain finance solutions enabling suppliers to obtain early payments. The company integrates with enterprise platforms and leverages transaction data to free up cash, accelerate payments, and improve supply chain health. Taulia reported achieving profitability in 2019 and has said it had never experienced a default. On March 10, 2021 Taulia announced it had acquired over $6 billion in financing from a JPMorgan-led consortium after its partner Greensill Capital filed for insolvency. The financing includes a JPMorgan-offered $3.8 billion credit facility that Reuters said is valued at over $6 billion; consortium members named by Taulia include UniCredit, UBS and BBVA. Taulia said the credit facility will provide clients who previously relied on Greensill with continued and steady access to liquidity. Taulia provides working capital solutions via a technology platform combined with services to help companies optimize working capital and supply-chain finance. The platform enables firms to transition from manual working-capital processes to technology-led optimization strategies. A network of 2 million businesses uses Taulia’s technology, and the company processes over $500 billion every year. Taulia’s customers include large global companies such as Airbus, AstraZeneca, Nissan and Vodafone. Led by CEO Cedric Bru, the company plans to use new funding to accelerate growth and pursue further global expansion. The article frames the business as focused on scaling its platform and network internationally. Taulia is a San Francisco-based financial supply chain platform that connects large companies to their suppliers through eInvoicing, supplier management and supplier financing tools. The platform has processed over $150 billion in transactions for 700,000 suppliers in more than 100 countries. Customers include Coca-Cola Bottling, Pfizer, Hallmark, John Deere and other Fortune 500 companies across industries. The company raised $46M in a Series E financing led by Zouk Capital, and has raised over $130M to date. Taulia is led by CEO Cedric Bru and recently hired John Varughese as CFO, who will oversee finance, legal and HR. The article does not disclose revenue figures. Taulia operates a supplier-financing and electronic invoicing platform that automates tracking of invoices and payments and offers short-term financing for approved invoices. The platform reduces buyer costs while accelerating supplier payments. The company reported $75 billion in short-term financing provided to suppliers and a 186% growth in its supplier network as of 2014. Taulia has grown to more than 200 employees, roughly double its headcount from a year earlier, and recently hired CFO Rik Thorbecke. The company says it will use the new funding to continue international expansion. Taulia offers a platform that enables Fortune 500 companies to handle invoicing and supplier payments electronically, automate invoicing workflows, and optimize supplier discounts via dynamic discounting. For suppliers the platform simplifies invoice submission, increases visibility into approval status, speeds payments, and enables short-term supplier financing against approved invoices. Taulia serves global clients including PG&E, Hallmark, Coca-Cola Bottling Co., and Graphic Packaging International. The company has expanded from the U.S. into Europe and plans further regional expansion in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Management intends to open a regional headquarters in Singapore to serve APAC and later consider a regional HQ in Mexico or Brazil for Latin America. Taulia was founded in 2009, has about 180 employees (up from 100 at the start of the year), and maintains offices in San Francisco (HQ), Park City, Austin, and London.

No current team members are available.