Start-up Vartana launches with $57m funding with aim to become the “Affirm for B2B”
Vartana, a provider of managed checkout and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options for businesses, has launched with $57 million in seed funding.
Vartana hopes to be the “Affirm for B2B”
The new capital comprises $7 million in equity led by technology firm Audacious Ventures and $50 million in debt from i80 Group, a specialty financing firm for fintechs and proptechs.
Flex Capital and several angel investors such as Shoaib Makani, Joe Kraus, Bipul Sinha, Allen Shim, and Adil Syed also participated in the round.
California-based Vartana was founded in 2020 by Kush Kella and Ahmed Sharif, who worked together at fleet management company KeepTruckin.
There, they “dealt with the pain of broken contract management and payments infrastructure required to go from signed order to cash collected”, the company says.
Vartana aims to be the “Affirm for B2B”.
“We create a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers of SaaS and other technology products. Buyers can solve budget constraints by paying on a schedule that works for them, while sellers get paid upfront and eliminate churn on deals,” explains CEO Kella.
“Our platform is the first-ever managed checkout platform to accelerate enterprise sales.”
Vartana works with mid to late-stage technology companies and their resellers. The platform pre-approves customers in the sales funnel for payment plans through real-time automated underwriting technology. Customers can then choose their preferred payment options and complete transactions within a few minutes through an integrated checkout experience, according to the start-up.
The new funding will go towards product development “by doubling its engineering capacity”, as well as new hires in sales and operations.
