The concept for Fundbox was partially inspired by CEO and co-founder Eyal Shinar's mother, who struggled with late payments at the employment agency she owned and operated in Israel. The company was officially launched in April 2013 by Yuval Ariav, Eyal Shinar, and Tomer Michaeli. After operating for approximately one year in stealth mode, the service became available to the public in April 2014. Since the organization's launch, tens of thousands of businesses have connected to the Fundbox platform.
Funding
Fundbox emerged from a stealth operations mode in April 2014 and announced it had raised a $17.5 million Series Ainvestment round. Khosla Ventures led the round with support from SV Angel, Vikram Pandit, Tom Glocer, as well as other individual investors. In March 2015 the company closed a Series B funding round of $40 million. The round was led by General Catalyst Partners with additional support from NyCa Investment Partners. Previous backers, such as Khosla Ventures, Shlomo Kramer, and Blumberg Capital, also participated in the financing round. In September 2019 Fundbox successfully announced they had raised $176 million Series C investment round. This round was led by a consortium of funders, including Allianz X, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, HarbourVest and a litany of others. Existing backers Khosla, General Catalyst, and Spark Capital Growth also participated With this investment they have raised over $400 million.
Services
Fundbox's primary offering is a cash flow optimization tool that advances money against a company's outstanding invoices. The advances are intended for use by small businesses in the business-to-business space seeking to optimize cash flow and continue to successfully run their businesses while waiting for accounts receivable invoices to be paid. This enhancement in cash flow is intended to help companies maintain consistent operations and streamline capital for expenses like new equipment or payroll.
Use
To establish a Fundbox account, users are required to link their accounting platforms with Fundbox. There is no fee for this registration, connection, and approval process. Fundbox then uses data analytics tools such as data science engines and machine learning algorithms to determine a credit line and to calculate the risk of each invoice. A typical credit line can vary between $1,000 and $25,000. Before clearing an invoice, Fundbox customers can see the fee for each invoice, which is based on the risk and probability of repayment. Once an invoice is cleared, funds are deposited directly into the customer's bank account between 24 and 48 hours.
Repayment
The Fundbox repayment plan is 12 weeks. Repayment is completed through weekly payments that are automatically debited from a customer's bank account. Each weekly payment includes one-twelfth of the principal and one-twelfth of the fee. If a user pays back the advance before the 12-week period has elapsed, Fundbox will waive the remaining fees. The company's website features a calculator to estimate the cost of each advance.
