Taking a fresh perspective on the payments chain, fintech startup Hero has raised €12.4 million for its full-stack solution. The Paris-based startup is specifically targeting B2B SME’s with its innovative product.
The payments space is continuing to experience lots of innovation this year. From BNPL solutions to embedded finance solutions, it’s the fintech sector that seems just to keep giving. Now, taking a fresh look at the payments chain – from a horizontal angle – Paris-based Hero has scored €12.4 million to scale its solution.
The funding for the Parisian startup was led by Paua Ventures and Embedded/capital alongside Rapyd Ventures. A host of fintech angels and operators are also joining: Guillaume Princen (Stripe), Phillippe de Passorio (Adyen), Peter O’higgins (Revolut), Steve Anavi (Qonto), Fabrice Grinda (FJ labs), Barbora Winczerva (Mubadala) and Perry Blacher (Augmentum), Josef Bovet (Tiller) and Joan Burkovic (Bankin’).
Founded in 2021 by Roland Jais Nielson, Hero offers full-stack payment solutions for B2B SMEs, providing solutions from liquidity to digital payment on all sales channels.
Roland explained: “Hero started out as an intermediary to B2B transactions, taking on the financial and credit risk of both counterparties and helping them optimize their cash flows. We quickly realized that lowering cost-to-transact for SMEs also implied better underwriting, centralizing all sales channels and payment methods, third-party integration, and end-to-end automation. We built Hero around this holistic vision.”
Typically, innovators in the payments chain focus on just one vertical. However, Hero is building a horizontally integrated platform – managing both sides of a translation. It, therefore, makes an impact on procure-to-pay for clients and order-to-cash for suppliers. This brings seamless and transparent underwriting to the market, offering instantaneous financing terms.
The solution is specifically adapted to SMEs, which remain underserved by incumbent banks. Hero is able to manage all sales channels – whether it be offline, online or in-store, and all payment types for any company size. This is a major leap forward for SMEs, enabling them to completely streamline and optimise processes. Lastly, the platform allows for seamless integrations with third-party B2B software, including ERPs, marketplaces and accounting tools. Again, for SMEs, this is a refreshing approach that makes their lives much simpler.
Georg Stockinger, Managing Partner of Paua Ventures, highlighted this: “Hero stands out from others in the space because it makes payments in offline B2B commerce as seamless as an online B2C checkout experience while embedding credit into any transaction. A host of integrations into the most widely used B2B commerce sales, ERP and accounting tools, helped with rapid adoption. This is why after only 7 months of inception, Hero managed to onboard over 200 merchants, power 10,000+ transactions and is growing at an astounding 30% month over month.”
