Adfin | Adfin emerges from stealth with $4.9m (€4.5m) in funding to build the best way for bills to get paid

We launched Adfin because we believe there’s a better way for consumers and businesses to manage payments. Now, we’re joined in that mission by co-lead investors Index Ventures and Visionaries Club, along with a prominent set of angels, including Guillaume Pousaz (Checkout.com founder), Thijn Lamers (Adyen founding team), Josef Bovet, (Tiller co-founder), Maximilian Eber and Maik Wehmeyer (Taktile founders), David de Picciotto (Pledge co-founder), Ferdinand Meyer (Moss co-founder), and Eugene Danilkis (Mambu co-founder).

‍

The decades of fintech experience we have between us have exposed the shortcomings of open banking and the limitations of modern billing products. Open banking can be low-cost, but it’s simply not ready for everyone. Bill payments are still painfully manual for senders and payers. That’s why we’re on a mission to fix bill payments for everyone with Adfin. Combining state-of-the-art payment technologies with AI-powered insights, we’re providing the most seamless, fast and cost-effective experience for businesses and consumers alike.

‍

Bill payments are stuck in the 1990s

‍

European fintech entrepreneurs have transformed how money is moved since the 2010s, but somehow billing was left conspicuously untouched. As a result, processing and paying bills remains a horrible experience on both sides. For the most part, businesses are stuck with convincing customers to set up a direct debit, managing the arduous process of having them send a bank transfer, or settling for taking card payments – with the accompanying fees. For smaller businesses like tradespeople and lawyers, significant resources and time is spent chasing payments. Often they will resort to processing cards over the phone. This creates an extra burden for their bookkeepers, who are left piecing together transactions from a patchwork of antiquated sources.

‍

For payers, things aren’t any better. Payments mean inputting lines of address, entering card numbers or account details, and triple checking that everything is correct so that the payment doesn’t fail – or, worse, is sent to the wrong place. Fraudsters are taking advantage of the confusion by impersonating billers, stealing people’s house deposits or clearing out their accounts. These bad experiences for payers translate to bad outcomes for billers, who struggle with cashflow simply because people can’t face the stress-inducing payment process.

‍

Open banking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

‍

Open banking was meant to at least reduce payment costs for companies through instant transfers between any account. But consumer adoption has been slow – in the UK, just 11% of the public use the system, compared to 17% of businesses. Only around 50% of the UK population use the mobile banking apps necessary in the first place to make open banking a good experience.

‍

No biller – even the largest – can be expected to stay on top of the ever-changing payment mix, but being behind the curve can cost them a meaningful percentage of revenue. At Adfin, we solve this by intelligently combining best-in-class open banking technology with card payments. Using our AI-powered system means that each time, not only the fastest and cheapest payment option for the business is used, but the one that will maximise the likelihood of a successful payment based on individual payer insights. This product is unique in Europe and possibly worldwide.

‍

No one tool was perfect for the job. That’s why we’re building Adfin

‍

As infrastructure experts, we saw first-hand how no one tool was perfect for the job. We wanted to make best-in-class payments accessible to everyone. Our first product is squarely focused on solving the problem of getting invoices paid for businesses in the fastest, cheapest and most effective way possible:

‍

Small business owners get their evenings back with Adfin. Say goodbye to the tedious tasks of generating and chasing invoices and bill payments.
Bookkeepers can use Adfin to automate business or consumer invoice-to-cash processes, simply syncing all transitions to leading accountancy software without a single line of code needed.
SaaS platforms integrate with Adfin to offer a seamless billing experience to business customers. Current implementation partners include legal practice management software SOS Legal and dental platform 32Co.
Bill payers use Adfin for a stress-free bill-paying experience, which strips away the layers of admin often associated with the process.

‍

Assembling a team of fintech nerds to change billing

‍

We’re at the start of our journey, building a lean, high-impact team of fintech experts. We draw on decades of experience building fintechs in Europe, including open banking platform Tink and cloud banking platform Mambu, and have a roster of investors who have scaled some of Europe’s greatest fintech success stories. Get in touch if you want to join our journey and advance the state of the art in billing!

‍

Adfin emerges from stealth with $4.9m (€4.5m) in funding to build the best way for bills to get paid

Read more

4 ways to improve your account receivable and get paid faster

Using direct debits to minimise the disruption from software price increases

From fashion to finance: how Beth is building a modern practice