The digitization of B2B payments is inevitable in the decades to come.
When Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi joined the YC W17 batch with an idea for a VR startup, they quickly encountered a problem. They had applied for a business credit card to help fund software and other expenses and were denied. Business credit is traditionally underwritten based on the founders’ FICO scores. As international founders with less than a month of credit history, their chances of getting approved were slim to none, despite having $125K in the bank.
It wasn’t just them. They discovered that, while early startup founders had access to high-fidelity payments products like Stripe (YC S09) right from the get-go, getting access to basic banking and credit products was a terrible experience for everyone. Even with $125K from YC and $1–2M in venture funding, a startup’s credit limit is still likely to tap out at $20K from an incumbent creditor—which is not nearly enough to cover software, marketing, and other expenses. Cards are particularly a must have for young companies because large vendors don’t often accept ACH and other forms of alternative payment from early startups. In practice, this leads to founders resorting to using their personal credit cards for SaaS subscriptions or digital marketing, and filing reimbursements regularly.
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