Dive Brief:
- Balance, a New York-based business-to-business payments startup, has begun offering its buy now, pay later services for U.S. small and mid-sized merchants on the Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba, according to a Thursday press release.
- With the service, Balance assesses the risk of small and mid-sized businesses in real-time and offers instant financing at checkout to eligible merchants, according to the release.
- “In tight economic conditions, and especially with the added strain of tariffs, access to financing can make the difference between surviving and thriving,” Balance CEO Bar Geron said in the statement. “We’re proud to partner with Alibaba.com and power a solution that helps its U.S. users grow their businesses.”
Dive Insight:
Since its founding in 2021, Balance has grown to employ 75 employees and raised $356 million in capital from investors such as Stripe, Ribbit Capital and Lightspeed Ventures, a Balance spokesperson said by email.
With its investor capital, Balance has expanded its client base. In addition to Alibaba, the B2B embedded payments provider now counts other major companies as customers, including Instacart Business.
“Flexible B2B payments are essential for business customers who want to grow,” Yiran Li, head of customer retention strategy for Alibaba.com’s U.S. division, said in the statement. Balance services at Alibaba’s checkout will make it “easy for customers to buy on their terms, without being limited by cash flow constraints.”
In July 2022, Balance raised $56 million from the venture capital firms Forerunner Ventures and HubSpot Ventures, as well as the venture arm of the software company Salesforce. At that time, the company said it would direct the funds to developing services that would allow sellers to expand their offerings for global e-commerce platforms, among other possibilities.
