• Billhop enables businesses to pay supplier invoices using existing cards, regardless of the suppliers’ payment stack – tapping into $120 trillion B2B payments market, which lacks low-friction options compared to B2C

• Creates opportunities for increased capital efficiencies, creating win-wins for all buyers, sellers, and their payment providers

• New funding will be used for hiring, customer acquisition, and geographical expansion

• Manages the complete payment process without having to onboard the end recipient, who is paid through a bank-to-bank transfer – removing previous barriers to card acceptance in B2B payments (e.g. setting up new card acceptance infrastructure, processing fees)

Today, proprietary straight-through processing (STP) payments platform Billhop – which offers businesses process and capital efficiencies based on existing credit card infrastructure – announces it has raised €10.5 million, led by EQT Ventures with participation from Element Ventures, pending SFSA approval. The funding will be used to scale aggressively – including hiring (particularly tech and marketing roles), customer acquisition, and geographical expansion. 

Credit cards allow users to benefit from the interest-free credit period until the card statement is due, while also offering a swift and seamless user experience. This has led to cards becoming the preferred method of payment for consumers globally, with B2C card acceptance reaching 99% in some markets. On the B2B side, however, card acceptance is fractional worldwide – suppliers neither want to set up the card acceptance infrastructure required, nor do they want to pay the processing fees associated with accepting commercial card payments. As such, the most common B2B payment method is bank-to-bank transfers in some markets, cheques, or wire transfers. 

Today Billhop manages the complete payment process for its business customers without having to onboard the company’s vendors. Vendors don’t need to change anything in their existing accounts receivables process; they simply get paid directly into their usual bank account through a bank-to-bank transfer. Companies take advantage of simplified processes and potential opportunities to optimise working capital.

The B2B payment market is worth $120 trillion, but is largely untapped by credit cards due to the low card acceptance within B2B. Billhop has seen rapid growth by creating wins for the card industry, including card schemes, acquirers, and commercial issuers – providing access to the B2B vertical, without cannibalising other products and without any implementation or investment required.

Co-founded by Sebastian Andreescu (CEO), Erik Malm (CTO) and Ingemar Sjögren (CFO) in Stockholm, Sweden, Billhop serves over 20 markets, catering to Fortune 500 enterprise customers across Europe; and sole traders and SMEs in the UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland and Finland. Operating with a lean team of 19 people, 65,000 customers have been successfully onboarded and Billhop boasts strong industry relationships, working closely with all major card payment networks and a handful global commercial issuers. Currently, Billhop processes €250 million in transaction volumes annually. Last year, Billhop doubled its team, including key hires from Stockholm’s rich pool of talent in fintech and payments.

Commenting on this news, Sebastian Andreescu, CEO & co-founder of Billhop, said:

“We have seen a very strong product market fit in the last 12 months  and the investment from EQT Ventures further accelerates our plan of becoming the preferred payments partner for businesses of all sizes across Europe. We are also particularly happy about having Ashley join our board of directors, as her proven track record and expertise will be of great value for us as we now enter into an ambitious scale-up phase.”

Ashley Lundström, Partner at EQT Ventures, added: 

“At EQT Ventures we are keen to back founders tackling large markets seeing large changes, particularly when there are win-wins. The payment industry globally has seen a proliferation of choice in B2C payments, and we are excited to back Billhop as they bring long awaited innovations to B2B payments.”