40Seas – a leading Order Now, Pay Later cross-border digital financing solution – recently announced it had secured an additional $6 million in seed funding, extending its initial $11 million seed round announced in January of this year to $17 million. New investors Eminence Ventures and QED Investors also participated in the extended round, including participation from existing investors Team8 and ZIM.
Along with providing 40Seas with a $100 million credit facility, leading global container liner shipping company ZIM expanded its strategic partnership with 40Seas, providing ZIM’s global customer base with an embedded and flexible digital financing solution to ease the burden of freight and inventory expenses at checkout, including through its digital freight forwarding subsidiary Ship4wd. And following a phased rollout across the US, Canada, and the UK, ZIM recently announced that it would offer the 40Seas solution to its customers in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Australia.
Since going live, 40Seas has experienced rapid growth, financing millions in transactions and onboarding hundreds of customers in dozens of countries throughout EU, APAC and the Americas. And 40Seas has already established a global footprint with offices in Tel Aviv, New York City, Toronto, and Shenzhen – laying the foundations for ongoing international growth.
40Seas utilizes global innovation at the intersection of B2B commerce and fintech to deliver a cost-effective, user-friendly digital financing framework for SMEs involved in cross-border trade. And the solution, available as an API or stand-alone platform, enables ecosystem players to bridge the working capital gap between exporters who require advance payment and importers who wish to pay for goods only after they’ve been sold.
40Seas can be seamlessly embedded into checkout portals, facilitating easy and streamlined finance access at the customer journey’s most convenient point. And by digitizing order flows and payment processes, which in many cases still happen offline, the platform drives transactional efficiencies and makes it easier to conduct business.
40Seas’ AI-powered underwriting capabilities extract rich and actionable insights relating to importers and exporters, which can provide much more holistic and tailored financing solutions. And with greater visibility over importer and exporter transaction history, 40Seas can scalably verify creditworthiness, assess risk, and process financing much more efficiently than traditional banks – which generally lack oversight of companies that operate outside their jurisdiction.
KEY QUOTES:
“Less than six months after our initial seed round, our existing investors Team8 and ZIM have doubled down on their financial backing. We’ve achieved this at a pronounced increase in valuation, which is a huge sign of confidence in our unique value proposition, especially given the current market conditions. We’ve also secured funding from two renowned investment groups in QED via their seed fund and Eminence Ventures, which will help tremendously with our US and Asian expansion. This round extension will provide us with a significant financial runway to execute a robust growth strategy in 2023 and beyond.”
— Eyal Moldovan, Co-founder and CEO, 40Seas
“We’re delighted to extend our investment in 40Seas, a platform that has experienced spectacular early-stage growth. At ZIM, we are very much aligned with the 40Seas mission to help SMEs overcome payment-related barriers to cross-border trade. Thanks to 40Seas’ flexible digital financing solution, our customers can now defer payment for freight charges for up to 90 days from the invoice date, giving them invaluable flexibility. We’re excited to build on this very promising partnership in the months ahead.”
— Eli Glickman, President and CEO, ZIM
“40Seas is on a mission to provide digital access to financing for small and medium sized-enterprises (SMEs). This aligns with the overarching goal of Team8’s fintech foundry to accelerate the development of innovative, vertical-specific fintech solutions designed to address long standing industry pain points. Given the scarcity of viable choices for SMEs on a global scale, the 40Seas platform will play a pivotal role in moving the industry forward, making financial services more efficient and accessible to businesses engaged in global trade.”
— Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, Managing Partner, Team8
“SMEs need swift access to financing in order to make sound decisions around pricing and inventory management. Antiquated payment technology and trade financing offerings have made life unnecessarily difficult for importers and exporters, while exacerbating global supply chain fragmentation. 40Seas will help SMEs get faster and easier access to financing.”
— Peter Cheng, Founding Managing Partner, Eminence Ventures
“Global trade is a huge market with $32 trillion in volume of goods moved across the world every year, but access to capital is highly constrained for small and medium importers and exporters. The industry suffers from a $1.7 trillion trade finance gap in the world, and 40Seas is working to bridge that gap for some of the largest trade corridors through a powerful embedded trade financing platform.”
— Camila Key Saruhashim, Principal at QED
