The Singapore-based fintech company GoFluid.io (Fluid), which facilitates flexible financing for business-to-business (B2B) purchases, has raised $5.2 million in an equity round headed by Insignia Ventures Partners.
Fluid said in a statement on Tuesday that the company has raised $7 million in total funding, including $1.8 million from Iterative and New Stack Ventures in a seed round.
In this round, the company hopes to add larger suppliers from a variety of industries to its platform and broaden its product offerings, according to the statement.
Additionally, the business plans to grow its risk and engineering teams by hiring more people with the additional investment.
Chief Executive Officer Trasy Lou Walsh (a former regional general manager at Atome and general manager at Uber), Chief Product Officer Steven Li (a former head of product at Coupang Pay and Atome), and Chief Financial Officer Ruoyun Yang (a former lendable head of Asia and investments at IFC) founded Fluid in early 2023.
Deferred payment or credit terms are observed to be involved in more than 70% of B2B payments.
Numerous suppliers encounter challenges in fulfilling buyer credit requests due to the intricate and hazardous nature of these payment methods.
Suppliers are locked out of customers, and growth is constrained. This makes it harder for buyers to choose suppliers and makes the payment and procurement processes take longer.
Fluid’s platform addresses both sides of the transaction by giving buyers access to purchase financing and enabling suppliers to take on suppliers with credit terms.
Fluid pays suppliers instantly, removing the uncertainty and inconvenience associated with collecting account receivables.
Through seamless integration into any B2B marketplace or supplier websites, apps, or ordering systems, Fluid provides buyers with purchase financing to secure purchases on preferred credit terms or installments, as well as payment flexibility.
B2B payments have traditionally used invoice factoring; however, many of the current digital solutions have laborious procedures, requiring business buyers to go through lengthy questionnaires and endure a multi-day approval process.
This strategy lacks a user-centric focus and is primarily finance-centric.
“The current system just doesn’t work. We have seen how difficult it can be for suppliers to manage cash flow around deferred payment terms and account receivables collection,” said Walsh.
