Participated · Debt Financing · Oct 2017

BlueVine offers banking and working-capital products — including Business Checking, Payments, and a Line of Credit — built specifically for small and medium-sized businesses. The company emphasizes providing flexible credit and resources to help very small businesses grow and thrive. BlueVine recently increased the committed amount on its Line of Credit warehouse debt facility with Atalaya and two lenders advised by 20 Gates Management to $150M, with the ability to upsize to $300M. It has also restarted its Line of Credit forward-flow program with multiple previous and new buyers, with capacity to sell hundreds of millions in originations annually. These financing partnerships are intended to diversify funding sources and enable BlueVine to expand its Line of Credit lending during economic recovery. BlueVine is based in Redwood City, California, and is backed by investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, ION Crossover Partners, SVB Capital, Nationwide Insurance, and M12. BlueVine provides small- and medium-sized businesses access to financial services via an advanced online platform. The company offers a suite of products including BlueVine Business Checking, Line of Credit, Term Loan, and Invoice Factoring. Led by CEO Eyal Lifsthiz, BlueVine has provided more than $6.5 billion in financing to SMBs. It also delivered $4.5 billion in Coronavirus pandemic financial relief loans through the Paycheck Protection Program to more than 155,000 small business owners. BlueVine recently opened a Salt Lake City, Utah office focused on customer service initiatives. The company is using new capital to expand its Line of Credit lending solution and broaden lending resources for small business customers. BlueVine is a fintech that offers financing and business banking products specifically for SMBs. Its core offerings include lines of credit and term loans (both up to $250,000), invoice factoring with credit lines up to $5 million, and a growing business banking suite including checking accounts. The company aims to be a one-stop financial platform for SMBs, expanding product breadth to keep customers on its platform and improve margins rather than white-labeling its technology. BlueVine has originated about $2.5 billion in loans to roughly 20,000 small businesses and only recently launched its checking product. Financially, the company is not yet profitable but reports 100% growth year-over-year and expects triple-digit revenue this year. It has raised significant equity and debt to fund growth and loan originations. BlueVine provides flexible working capital financing to small and medium-sized businesses, giving them quick access to funds to purchase inventory, cover expenses, or expand operations. The company developed a fully-online, cloud-based platform for invoice factoring and also offers Flex Credit, a business line of credit financing issued by Celtic Bank. Flex Credit is based on 6-month and 12-month payment terms. Founded in 2013 by CEO Eyal Lifshitz, BlueVine now has more than 200 employees across Redwood City, New Jersey, New Orleans and Israel. Financially, the company has raised over $500M to date, with its Series E totaling $72M after the additional $12M announced. BlueVine provides working capital financing to small and medium-sized businesses, offering business lines of credit and invoice factoring. The company plans to expand its business line of credit product using newly secured capital. BlueVine recently secured a $200 million asset-backed revolving credit facility with Credit Suisse. It is also raising its business line of credit limit to $250,000 and earlier doubled its invoice factoring credit limit to $5 million. Led by Founder and CEO Eyal Lifshitz and CFO Ana Sirbu, its total funded volume since founding is expected to top $1 billion in 2018.

Led · Equity · Feb 2016

WorldRemit is identified in the article as a money-transfer start-up that provides services for sending money. The piece reports a recent capital raise for the company. Specifically, the article states WorldRemit has raised $100m. The article does not include details on products, target markets, or operating metrics such as revenue or user counts. It also does not disclose investors, the financing instrument, valuation, or use of proceeds. No information about past rounds, founding year, location, or future plans is provided in the article. WorldRemit operates a mobile-first remittance service that lets individuals send money from developed countries to recipients in emerging markets through an app. The service covers 50 send countries and 150 receive countries and serves about 4 million users, up from 2 million in 2017; the US is its largest send market and it holds licenses to operate in all US states. The company positions itself on speed, service, security and value and describes its business as a mobile payments company beyond traditional remit services. Management says it will continue growing individual transfers while expanding into payments between small and medium-sized businesses. Leadership changed in late 2018 when founder Ismail Ahmed stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Breon Corcoran; Ahmed remains non-executive chairman. WorldRemit has been building technology to compete with incumbents and other fintech remitters as global remittance flows grow. WorldRemit operates a mobile-first remittances platform serving roughly 2 million users and enabling transfers from about 50 countries into 148 countries. Its core product is a smartphone app that routes many transfers into mobile-money services such as M-Pesa, and the company says 90% of its customers use smartphones. Management aims to grow users to 10 million and to expand origination parity so customers can send from any country where WorldRemit operates, beginning by turning receive countries in Africa into send countries. WorldRemit plans to expand in Asia (including opening a Philippines office with about 100 new employees) and to grow its U.S. origination revenue share from 14% toward 40%. The company has grown mainly organically but says acquisitions may play a role as it scales and consolidates regionally. WorldRemit operates a mobile-first app that enables people to send money from their smartphones with recipient options including Mobile Money, bank transfer, cash pickup, and airtime top-up. The company generated $39m in revenue in 2015 and currently handles around 400,000 transfers every month, making it one of Europe’s biggest FinTech firms. WorldRemit is available in over 50 countries and 125+ destinations and says most transfers to many countries are instant. The company intends to use new funding to expand its network of partners worldwide and increase availability of instant money transfers. WorldRemit is backed by Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures and has raised $192.7m in funding to date. Its global headquarters are in London, with regional offices in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. WorldRemit is a London-headquartered online service that lets users send money via smartphone, tablet, or computer to friends and family in other countries. It offers bank deposits, cash pickup, instant transfers to Mobile Money wallets, and mobile airtime top-ups, and is a leading provider of instant transfers to Mobile Money. The service operates in 50 sending countries and sends to 117 receiving countries, with more than 50% of transfers to Africa received as Mobile Money or airtime top-ups. WorldRemit has grown headcount from around 40 in early 2014 to over 150, and unveiled Denver as its U.S. base with plans to recruit more than 200 staff. The company raised $100M in a Series B to extend its geographic reach and expand partnerships with Mobile Money wallets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. WorldRemit emphasizes low fees, guaranteed exchange rates, compliance infrastructure, and a market-leading technology platform as it targets disruption of the $550B global remittance market.

Led · Debt Financing · Jul 2015

Optoro operates a returns technology platform that uses data science and real-time decision-making automation to route returned items to optimal outcomes across resale, restocking, and secondary markets. Its product suite includes an online customer returns portal, warehouse processing, and resale software. Retail and brand customers named in the article include American Eagle, Best Buy, Target, Staples, and IKEA. The company says its solutions decrease inefficiencies, maximize recovery and repurchases, and reduce environmental waste while improving customer experience. In December 2021 Optoro received a $25 million strategic investment led by Zebra Technologies with participation from Volta Circle, eBay, and UPS. Optoro is partnering with Zebra to combine its software with Zebra’s hardware and pursue new end-to-end reverse logistics solutions to accelerate returns processing and cut waste. Optoro provides software and logistics solutions that help retailers — online and brick-and-mortar — more easily resell returned and excess inventory. The company uses data analytics and multi-channel online marketing to determine the best path for each item, aiming to maximize recovery and reduce environmental waste. Its customers include big-box and other legacy retailers facing rising online return rates, which the CEO says are two to three times those of brick-and-mortar sales. The business addresses a large market: returns represented roughly 10% of sales in 2017 (about $351 billion) per the article. Optoro is described as an eight-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based company with a growing base of customers. Financially, the company recently secured new funding and has attracted a mix of strategic and growth investors. Optoro is a Lanham, MD-based platform that helps retailers and manufacturers manage, process and sell returned and excess inventory. Its technology uses comprehensive data analytics and multi-channel online marketing to determine the best path for each item. The platform is designed to maximize recovery and reduce environmental waste. The company will use the $30M Series D proceeds to accelerate adoption of its solution across retailers and brands. In connection with the investment, Optoro and UPS formed a strategic alliance to provide a shop solution for retailers and manufacturers to optimize transportation and disposition of returned and excess inventory. Tobin Moore is co-founder and CEO. Optoro operates a software platform that connects buyers and sellers to manage returned and excess inventory, using data analytics to determine the best path for goods. Its technology processes, sorts and sells products to optimize recovery and reduce waste. Working with some of the largest U.S. retailers, Optoro says clients have increased recovery on such inventory by 50–200 percent. The company highlights industry-wide metrics — over 15% of inventory is returned annually, amounting to roughly $500 billion in the U.S. alone. Founded in 2008 and based in Washington, DC and Maryland, Optoro plans to scale its operations and technology to support the world’s biggest retailers. Financially, the company has raised over $100 million to date, including recent equity and debt financings. Optoro provides a cloud-based platform that manages, prices and routes returned and excess inventory across multiple digital channels, including eBay, Amazon and its consumer site BLINQ.com. The company uses predictive analytics and dynamic pricing to optimize channel allocation and typically increases recovery value for returns and excess by 2x–10x. Optoro’s platform directly reaches more than 500 million customers worldwide and sells simultaneously across over a dozen digital marketplaces. Its business model emphasizes sustainability by remarketing goods, connecting items to recyclers, or donating unsellable products to keep them out of landfills. Optoro has partnered with Trees for the Future to plant a tree for every order on BLINQ.com and has planted over 100,000 trees to date. The company plans to scale major partnerships and expand into new markets using the proceeds from its latest fundraise.