Today in B2B: Morgan Stanley Unveils Small Business Academy Participants; Limepay Talks Keeping Customer Payments In-House

Today in B2B payments, Limepay says everyone wins when businesses keep customer payments in-house, and Rali_cap unveils a $30 million fund for FinTechs in emerging markets. Plus, companies can compete for more talent if they streamline their background checks, and Morgan Stanley picks 10 small businesses for its academy program.

Fast, Fair Background Checks Help Companies Compete for Talent

In the war for talent, background checks are fast becoming yet another hurdle companies have to leap over as they race to find great candidates before the competition scoops them up.

Traditionally, those checks have been slow, manual and inefficient — often taking two or more weeks. And they’ve been anything but transparent for employers and candidates alike.

Checkr announced last month it had acquired GoodHire to expand into the small business market. Companies can use the artificial intelligence (AI) tech Checkr offers to speed up checks in any number of ways. One example: It can automatically categorize criminal charges from jurisdictions across the U.S., making the language easier to understand and reducing the time spent on manual review.

Keeping Customer Payments In-House a Win-Win for Businesses

It’s a strategic mistake for merchants to send customers to a third-party payment provider right at the end of their purchase journey. Instead, they should keep the customer within their own ecosystem.

That’s the insight that led to the launch of Limepay about two years ago. The payments platform company started in the eCommerce space, helping merchants build their own branded payments solutions, including everything from full payments to buy now, pay later (BNPL).

On April 20, the company launched a new digital business-to-business (B2B) payment system called Limepay STACK that simplifies B2B payments and offers a range of payment options, including BNPL. Limepay partners with banks, with the banks doing the lending while Limepay provides credit-as-a-service that enables businesses to accept payments.

Morgan Stanley Names 10 Small Businesses to Its Academy Program

Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Inclusion and the Morgan Stanley Supplier Diversity Program have set up the inaugural class of the bank’s Small Business Academy, which will promote equity and diverse leaders of small business, a press release said.

The initiative will help small businesses improve procurement, business acumen and their professional networks. The report says the classes are 12 weeks long, virtual and facilitated by instructors. Then there’s a yearlong mentorship program.

Ten small businesses were picked for the program: Blu Fable, a creative content agency; Hootology, a market research company; Impact Consulting, a management consulting firm; InnovatorsBox, a workplace consultant; IT Creative Labs, a software company; Runaway Train Productions, a video producer; Sam’s Word, a digital design and marketing agency; Solvitur Systems, a cybersecurity firm; The Posture People, a workplace health consultant; TLZ Architecture DPC.

Rali_cap Debuts $30M Fund for Emerging-Markets FinTech

Rali_cap, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in emerging markets FinTech, has increased its new fund by $10 million, after the company, which used to be called Rally Cap Ventures, last month reached a close of $20 million, which was its original target. Then it increased the fund size to $30 million.

Rali_cap invests in business-to-business (B2B) and application programming interface (API) FinTechs in Latin America, Africa and South Asia, at pre-seed and seed stages. The company plans to get a second close by the end of June.

Haymond Simmons, the general partner who launched the firm in 2020, said it used to be a collective before it became a fund. He said he saw a good opportunity to aggregate a community of experts, including operators and angels, to collaborate on deal sourcing, due diligence and founder support, while investing in emerging FinTechs.