A $200M Mélange Of B2B Venture Capital

B2B startups saw a little bit of everything this week when it came to venture capital. From pre-Series A funding to late-stage investment rounds, ranging from a modest $1 million to the week’s high point of $88 million, backers showed their versatility. And that goes for the industries covered, too, with treasury management’s Kyriba, blockchain’s BlockApps and enterprise security’s Druva landing on the board, to name a few.

In all, nearly $200 million went to B2B startups this week. Find out who else secured funding below.

Expense Management

Captio

Spain-based Captio revealed a $1.1 million funding round over the weekend, with the corporate expense management company seeing funding from Sabadell Venture Capital, Venturecap, Bankinter, Telegraph Hill Capital and Kibo Ventures. With the new funds, Captio said it will focus on expanding its operations within the corporate travel and employee expense management space. Existing clients include Toyota and Ricoh, according to reports.

Blockchain

BlockApps

BlockApps wants to expand its Blockchain-as-a-Service solution across the globe, and its latest financing round will help the company with that goal. According to reports last weekend, the firm raised pre-Series A funding of an undisclosed amount to bring its BaaS offering to China. The company offers developers a way to create blockchain apps using Ethereum distributed ledger technology.

Reports said the funding was led by Fenbushi Capital and saw participation from both U.S.- and China-based backers, like Black Pine Capital, the Novogratz Family Office, Radiant Venture Capital and Ventris Capital. While the company is collaborating with Alibaba, Microsoft Azure China, Tencent and other Chinese conglomerates to enter the market, BlockApps CEO Victor Wong said that the U.S., Europe, South America and the Middle East have all experienced their own increase in demand for blockchain-based enterprise apps. The company’s clients operate in a range of industries, BlockApps said, including finance, supply chain management and payments.

Alternative Lending

Praetura

After alternative lending’s stellar performance last week, another company has boosted the industry’s VC reputation. Praetura announced a $23.3 million funding round from British Business Bank Investments (BBBI). The asset financing company, based in the U.K., said it has provided financing to companies across a slew of verticals and said that its partnership with BBBI will help it expand its reach to SMEs.

“We’re urging firms to look further afield than the main high street lenders in order to source the capital they need to invest, expand and compete,” said Praetura Managing Director Mike Hartley.

Enterprise Security

Druva

In line with India’s pivot towards B2B-focusd investments, Druva, which provides data security solutions for the enterprise, announced $51 million in funding on Wednesday (Sept. 28). The company’s backing comes at the hands of Sequoia Capital India, as well as Singapore-based Economic Development Board Investments.

The India-headquartered company said it will use the funding to focus on innovation, technology and product adoption and will be exploring opportunities for global growth. Druva cited the “fragmentation of data,” as well as increasing regulatory pressures for enterprise security, as two forces pushing for demand of Druva’s services.

Treasury Management

Kyriba

HSBC once again placed confidence behind Kyriba, a cloud-based treasury management firm, by participating in a $23 million Series D funding round, announced on Thursday (Sept. 29). Bpifrance led the round, while Daher Capital also contributed to the funding, reports said. Kyriba plans to use the funding to focus on product innovation and to strengthen capabilities around risk management, supply chain and cash management and bank connectivity, it revealed.

In a statement, Bpifrance Large Venture Investment Director Nicolas Herschtel said Kyriba is on its way to becoming a global company. “Bpifrance believes in Kyriba’s vision and sees the opportunity for Kyriba to accelerate its global leadership position in cloud cash management solutions,” he said.

Software-as-a-Service

Apptus

With a focus on quote-to-cash solutions, Apptus enables companies to streamline sales processes and offer quotes, automate invoice generation and manage customer contracts. The company is headed towards an IPO next year, but not before a quick funding round of $88 million, the firm revealed on Thursday. Gulf Islamic Investments led the funding, which also saw participation from K1, Iconiq and KIA, all of which are previous investors in the startup.

The late-stage Series D funding will be used to propel Apptus to cash profitability, CEO Kirk Krappe told reporters. Some of its clients include Salesforce and foodservice firm Aramark. According to reports, while an IPO is slated for the first half of 2017, earlier plans for a 2016 IPO were delayed, and an official filing for a float hasn’t yet been made.

Misc.

OpenSesame

Sure, this startup doesn’t exactly have anything to do with payments, but OpenSesame is a B2B-targeted company aimed at providing the enterprise with on-demand digital education tools. The firm revealed a $9 million funding round this week, following a previous $10 million round. This time, Altos Ventures and Partech Ventures provided the backing. According to reports, the corporate eLearning industry is on par to hit a $31 billion valuation by the end of the decade.

What’s Ahead

FTV Capital

FTV Capital said it will continue to focus on the enterprise technology and services, payments and financial services space with the close of an $850 million fund, announced this week. After nearly two decades in operation, FTV Capital said it has raised $2.7 billion to fund 90 companies in the space.