B2B PAYMENTS

B2B Finance As A Service

Tops This Week’s VC List
By PYMNTS  

Posted on August 24, 2018

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The big B2B venture capital news of the week was Augmentum Fintech’s trio of investments,
signaling the company’s focus on the B2B FinTech market — but it wasn’t the only rm targeting
this startup space. Investors also took a liking to accounting technology, alternative small
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business nance and eProcurement, with B2B FinTech startups raising more than $107 million
in all. Following, PYMNTS breaks down the latest investment rounds of the sector.

Consero Global

Based in Austin, Consero provides businesses with a Finance as a Service suite of solutions:
outsourced CFO and bookkeeping services, combined with its nancial management platform
SIMPL. The company secured $50 million in private equity funding from BV Investment
Partners, Built In Austin said this week. The new funding will be used to perpetuate Consero’s
existing goals of growth and market traction, with the company planning to focus on
automation initiatives. The company also plans to grow its staff, focus on product
enhancement, and explore acquisition opportunities. According to reports, Consero targets mid-
market companies and has gained traction among the private equity space.

Tide

U.K. challenger bank Tide raised $10.25 million this week with fundraising led by Augmentum
Fintech. When announcing the new funding, Tide also welcomed its new CEO, Oliver Prill, the
former COO of Kreditech. Tide focuses on small and medium-sized businesses, providing
banking and payment products in addition to invoice and bookkeeping solutions as it competes
with larger, traditional nancial institutions. Reports did not reveal what Tide plans to do with
the funding.

Previse

Augmentum Fintech announced its investment in Tide at the same time it revealed two other
B2B FinTech targets. The rm also invested in B2B payments company Previse, providing $2.6
million to the company that deploys machine learning to accelerate supplier payments in the
accounts payable department. In all, Previse raised $6.8 million in Series A funding, which also
saw Bessemer Venture Partners and Hambro Perks as backers.

DueDil

The third investment from Augmentum went to DueDil, which raised $10.2 million in Series C
funding — $2.6 million of which was provided by Augmentum. The company, based in the U.K.,
aggregates data across enterprise systems to identify risks and ensure compliance. Oak
Investment Partners, Notion Capital and VentureFounders also participated in the round. The
funds raised will go towards enhancing DueDil’s underlying technology, reports said.

Spocket

Spocket is a startup that has its hands in the B2C commerce world and addresses friction in the
market, helping online retailers sell suppliers’ goods, pay those vendors, and manage back-
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o ce processes associated with the buyer-supplier relationship. Investors at 7 Gate Ventures,
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Minstral Venture Partners, Panache Ventures and Plug and Play Ventures invested $1.5 million
in the company, according to BetaKit reports, which will go towards expanding its staff, growing
its platform, and investing in marketing efforts. The company enables businesses to sell
suppliers’ items even without purchasing them rst. Retailers using the Spocket platform can
browse products, provide branded invoicing and obtain discounts on their purchases, even if
they don’t buy items in bulk.

OfBusiness

India’s OfBusiness raised about $29 million in Series C funding, according to

an announcement this week, led by Creation Investments and Falcon Edge. Existing backers
Matrix Partners India and Zodius Capital also participated. OfBusiness operates a small
business funding platform, offering borrowers both short- and long-term nancing products and
access to institutional credit. OfBusiness is the brand name of NBFC Oxyzo Financial Services,
which is registered with the Reserve Bank of India. The company plans to use the funds to
continue focusing on growth and scaling.

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Latest Insights: 

Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and
frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation that’s reshaping the payments and
commerce ecosystem. Check out our February 2019 Payments And The Platform Economy
Report 

RELATED ITEMS: AUGMENTUM FINTECH, B2B, B2B ECOMMERCE, B2B FINANCE, B2B FINTECH, B2B
PAYMENTS, CONSERO GLOBAL, CORPORATE ACCOUNTING, DUEDIL, EPROCUREMENT, FINANCE-AS-A-
SERVICE, FINTECH STARTUPS, NEWS, OFBUSINESS, OLIVER PRILL, SMALL BUSINESS BANKING, SMALL
BUSINESS FUNDING, SPOCKET, TIDE, VC INVESTMENTS, VENTURE CAPITAL

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 B2B PAYMENTS

In Payments Fraud, Bad Guys

Play Go Phish
By PYMNTS  

Posted on August 24, 2018

There’s nothing new under the sun, except when it comes to

payments fraud.  Phishing still grabs victims by the wallet, and
Barclays warns against social engineering.  In the meantime,
fake invoicing made the news in the UK and elsewhere.
 

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There’s nothing new under the sun, they say … except for new ways to steal. Payments fraud is,
of course, no longer con ned to someone swiping a credit card and running up a tab or taking
money from a cash register.

In the world of data theft and emails, the bad guys and victims never meet face to face. And
since one might never know who is on the other side of a far- ung business relationship, the
opportunities for theft abound. The methods may be crude or high-tech and dazzling.

Barclays Urges Vigilance

To that end, as noted in The Week, Barclays Corporate Banking warned business owners that a
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number of methods must be considered to protect against bad actors. The fact remains that
“fraudsters often employ low-tech methods, rather than trojans or other malicious software.” In
terms of methods, the bank warns business owners to be vigilant against social engineering,
which means it is urging “professional services clients to check, check and check again.”

Again, the name of the game is social contact, but rendered through electronic means. The
social engineering gambit is, of course, known as phishing, and lures the unwitting into giving
away sensitive data or sending money to the fraudster.

In corporate fraud, it is the invoice that may be the lure, with account details that facilitate the
transfer of money … never to be seen again. To be vigilant, said Barclays, business owners need
to make staff aware of the invoice fraud specter. Invoices must be checked carefully, as should
email addresses — and, of course, steady contact with suppliers is helpful.

In an individual example of corporate fraud, in the U.K., Neil Avery Hughes, a director of Contact
Transport Limited, was banned for nine years from forming or acting as director of a company
(among other restrictions) after it was found that he submitted false claims worth 1 million
pounds, and after gaining cash advances that were higher in value than the work completed.
This resulted in a loss to the invoice discount facility provider.

Separately, in New Zealand, a woman in the midst of building a child care center fell victim to a
hacker to the tune of $53,700 — where the hacker posed as a contractor and sent a false
invoice. Anna Ryder, reported the New Zealand site Stuff, made the payment to her father, who
had been paying suppliers from his own bank account. The hacker intercepted an invoice, then
posed as the contractor — with a fake invoice, new bank account and just enough plausible
detail to make the scam work. Ryder and her father were alerted to the fraud only after the real
contractor began asking for payment.

New Zealanders have lost as much as $865,000 from fake invoices so far this year, reported the
site.

It may not be time to expect the outlook to brighten soon. The Credit Union Times reported, per
a study by TD Bank, that a majority of payments professionals — surveyed at the 2018 NACHA
conference in May — expect fraud to get worse. As many as 84 percent of professionals think
that fraud will, in fact, increase. That’s a slight drop from previous estimates.

“This drop could indicate that companies are gaining con dence as they prioritize and invest
greater resources in cybersecurity prevention and preparedness,” the report noted. “Further
supporting this idea, 9 percent of respondents noted that cybersecurity software will have the
greatest positive impact on the payments industry over the next three to ve years, potentially
indicating that payments professionals may nally be seeing some positive developments in
the area of cybersecurity.”

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Latest Insights: 
Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and
frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation that’s reshaping the payments and
commerce ecosystem. Check out our February 2019 Payments And The Platform Economy
Report 

RELATED ITEMS: B2B, B2B PAYMENTS, BARCLAYS, CORPORATE BANKING, CYBERSECURITY, FRAUD,
HACKERS, INVOICE, NEWS, PHISHING

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B2B PAYMENTS

WEF Recruits Russia’s

Sberbank To Combat
Cybercrime
By PYMNTS  

Posted on August 24, 2018

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The World Economic Forum (WEF) has reportedly begun recruiting banks to combat
cybercrime, beginning with Sberbank in Russia.

A press release sent to PYMNTS on Thursday (Aug. 23) said the WEF’s Centre for Cybersecurity
(C4C) plans to recruit six nancial institutions to collaborate on information sharing and
technological cooperation in an effort to combat cybercrime in the nancial services space.

The C4C plans to develop a data exchange solution so nancial institutions can share
information about cyberthreats, create a global network to promote cooperation between
computer emergency response teams, and nd a think tank to continue exploration and
development of cybersecurity strategies.

According to Sberbank CEO and chairman of the executive board Herman Gref, the WEF ranked
cybercrime as the “third most important global risk.” Terrorist attacks, on the other hand, ranked
only eighth.

“The Forum was one of the rst international organizations to understand the danger of the
growing threat of cybercrime,” he said.“Being the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe,
Sberbank is one of the prime targets of global cybercriminals and is the most attacked
company in the region.” 
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According to Gref, the bank was able to block 100 percent of cyberattack attempts last year.

“Given the global scale of cyberthreats, we understand the importance of relevant knowledge
and competence exchange,” he continued. “That’s why today we gladly accept the invitation by
the Forum to become the rst founding partner of the Centre and aim at long-term effective
cooperation with its other members.”

Sberbank will join the initiative and sit on the Global Cybersecurity Board, as well as participate
in the implementation of the C4C’s initiatives.

“Cybercrime is a reality we cannot afford to ignore … it is threatening the bene ts of the Fourth
Industrial Revolution,” said WEF founder and executive chairman, Professor Klaus Schwab. “At
the Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity, experts from the business and public sectors, law
enforcement and civil society will work towards a society that can withstand these challenges
and minimize the damage done by organized digital crime.”

The WEF did not indicate when it would announce the remaining ve bank partners to join the
initiative.

——————————–

Latest Insights: 

Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and
frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation that’s reshaping the payments and
commerce ecosystem. Check out our February 2019 Payments And The Platform Economy
Report 

RELATED ITEMS: B2B, B2B PAYMENTS, BANK CYBERSECURITY, CORPORATE BANKING, CYBERSECURITY,
DATA SECURITY, PAYMENTS, SBERBANK, WEF, WHAT'S HOT IN B2B, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

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