BlueVine and Veem: SME financing meets cross-border payments
BlueVine and Veem team up
SME financing firm BlueVine has partnered with cross-border payments specialist Veem to enable small business owners to save on international payments, reports David Penn at Finovate.
“If you rely on your bank for sending cross-border payments, you’re not alone,” notes BlueVine’s VP of business development and partnerships, Charles Amadon. “Most smaller businesses do. But ask a small business owner about their experience making cross-border payments through their bank and you’re likely to get an earful.”
Adding statistics to the pitch, Amadon points to an American Bankers’ Association payments survey that indicates that payments in general are a major pain point for SMEs. The survey shows that 87% of respondents said their bank did not have “a formal payment strategy”, and that 54% consider their bank’s attitude toward innovation in payments as a “wait and see approach”.
BlueVine offers small businesses financing options including an invoice factoring line of credit and a traditional business line of credit. The company’s invoice financing product provides a credit line from $20,000 to $5 million with flat advance rates of 85-90%, free automated clearing house (ACH) and $15 per wire. The business line of credit provides a revolving financing option up to $200,000 with interest rates as low as 4.8%. SMEs can get approved as quickly as 24 hours.
For its part, Veem feels the partnership as an opportunity for its SME customers to get the kind of preferential financing options typically enjoyed by larger companies.
BlueVine was founded in 2013. The company began the year with a decision to increase the limit on its invoice factoring line of credit to $5 million. Also this year, BlueVine appointed Ana Sirbu, the company’s VP of finance and capital markets, to the post of CFO.
Last autumn, BlueVine picked up $130 million in debt financing courtesy of Silicon Valley Bank, SunTrust Bank, Bank Leumi, and TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC Corporation. The company has raised $318 million in total funding, and includes Fortress Investment Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and 83 North among its investors.
Eyal Lifshitz is the company’s CEO.
