Apron, a London-headquartered business payments powerhouse, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. With this round, the total funding raised by the company accounts for over $50 million.
The round was led by Zinal Growth, a growth-stage-focused tech fund backed by the founder of Checkout.com. Existing investors Index Ventures, which led the $15 million Series A round last year, and Bessemer Venture Partners (which recently invested in Cents and Carwow) also participated in the round, alongside investor Tony Fadell, inventor of the iPod and Principal at Build Collective.
Funds utilisation
Proceeds of this round will be used to expand the company’s engineering and product teams ahead of significant milestones on the startup’s 2025 roadmap. The team will launch a new product that specifically brings Apron to larger suppliers that issue invoices to thousands of SMB customers, helping them eliminate the manual work of collecting revenue and getting paid faster.
The team will also bring to market a new affordable and accessible, expense management solution tailored for SMBs to sit alongside its Bill Pay product in response to customer demand for alternatives to market incumbents. It will help more small business owners by digitising and simplifying the payments process, and bring greater security to these companies’ cash flow.
What challenge does it tackle?
Receiving and making payments are pain points universally felt and endured by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). So much so that the average SMB owner reportedly spends up to 20% of their working week issuing, paying and managing invoices and the associated admin that exists around them. The biggest threat to small businesses is cash flow, often stemming from a gap between the demand payments put on owners and the aptitude to make the payments effectively.
Addressing this issue, Apron is focused on helping more small businesses bridge this gap, flipping payments from painful to powerful.
Payments platform for SMBs
Founded in late 2021 by Bogdan Uzbekov, a former product leader at Revolut, Apron enables business owners and their accountants to receive, sort, approve, pay, and reconcile invoices in seconds. Its payments platform helps small businesses digitise and simplify their payments processes. Whether capturing invoices, enabling collaboration for approvals, or combining long lists of invoices into one simple batch pay solution, Apron is their Powertool for Payments.
By implementing an approach in which suppliers, buyers, and their accountants can manage payments between themselves smoothly and seamlessly, the fintech helps SMBs reduce precious time and effort spent arranging and chasing payments, and get back to serving their customers and building their businesses.
Through its proprietary payments platform, the company enables customers to pay anyone, whether its employees or suppliers anywhere in the world. It also integrates easily with a business’s existing accounting tools (Xero or Quickbooks) for instant payment reconciliation.
Apron’s customer base of UK-based SMBs is fast-expanding and the number of SMB customers served by the company has increased by over 20x. Currently, thousands of invoices and millions in payments pass through its platform daily, helping more businesses save time and get back to doing what they love.
Bogdan Uzbekov, Founder & CEO of Apron, said: “Every business we speak to is looking for consumer-grade quality in their B2B software. It doesn’t make sense to them that, in their personal lives, payments can be made and received instantly, but that in business the process is long-winded, siloed, and not fit for purpose. With new investment and expertise on board, we’re excited to bring new talent into the team to innovate, design, and build the sort of B2B payments experience that truly flips payments from painful to powerful.”
Investors’ comments
Guillaume Pousaz, Founder of Checkout.com and Chairman of Zinal Growth, said: “We’ve been deeply impressed by the execution and vision of Bogdan and the Apron team. They have created a delightful product for both SMBs and accountants, and we are excited to continue supporting them on their journey.”
Luca Schmid, Managing Partner of Zinal Growth, added: “We believe Apron is solving a key pain point that SMB owners know only too well, making managing payments an efficient and enjoyable experience. We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Apron as they enter the next phase of their journey.”
Tony Fadell, iPod inventor and Build Collective principal, added: “Apron gives any small, even only one person, business the same financial tools as a large size company without the cost or complexity. It’s moving small businesses forward as business owners can now focus on serving their customers and spend their time actually running the business day to day. Apron gives SMBs the tools to do business better and more efficiently.”
Jan Hammer, Partner at Index Ventures, noted: “Apron has established itself as a powerful force in fintech making so many small business miracles come true. There’s immense value in the network Apron is building between suppliers, buyers, and accountants. By taking a relational view of payments, observing the human workflows of how businesses pay and get paid, Apron is creating something unique that delights small businesses.”
