HubSpot Invests in Balance to Help Modernize the B2B Marketplace
By Brandon Greer, Head of HubSpot Ventures
Consumers these days can make most of their everyday purchases online with only a few clicks. The ease of online B2C transactions lends itself to an uninterrupted payment flow between a company and its consumer. This means consumers can move through the process of adding an item to their cart and checking out in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for B2B payments. Although the B2B eCommerce marketplace is valued at more than 5x of the B2C market, most B2B commerce still happens offline, which means the payments systems are a couple of decades behind.
So, what’s caused the delay in bringing more B2B payments online? Simply put, it’s a complex, time-consuming, and fragmented process.
A lot of B2B transactions are set on terms and are relationship-based, requiring a high level of trust and security to help mitigate risk. Merchants spend lots of time making phone calls to clients. Invoice factoring is costly and the merchant bears the risk of payments. Wires are sent and reconciled manually. This process means it can take weeks or months for transactions to settle.
Savvy companies are beginning to realize the power of bringing a B2C checkout experience to B2B buying — HubSpot included. We built HubSpot Payments as part of our CRM platform to allow companies to accept payments quickly and seamlessly. We’ve seen how the B2B eCommerce space has rapidly expanded and believe that the B2B payments experience should operate with the same ease and security that people expect from B2C transactions.
Our Investment in Balance
This is why we’ve invested in Balance, a leader in B2B eCommerce payments helping to remove the friction from the traditional B2B buying process. Balance gives merchants an integrated buyer account experience, behind-the-scenes buyer risk scoring, monitoring, and selective extension of terms all through a hosted, embeddable checkout process that meets buyers’ expectations and needs.
Like HubSpot, Balance recognizes the importance of having well-crafted solutions in a digital-first world. While working on the risk team at PayPal, Balance co-founders Bar Geron and Yoni Shuster recognized that companies needed a way to offer their buyers a wide array of payment methods and flexible payment terms, while getting paid easily and instantly on an all-in-one platform — without having to build the solution in-house.
Today, Balance gives tech-forward B2B merchants and marketplaces ownership of the complete B2B checkout experience through flexible payment methods, terms-based credit, marketplace compliance, instant payouts, and reconciliation.
Bringing Global Trade Online
Balance’s mission is to bring B2B global trade online by giving businesses the tools they need to do B2B eCommerce well and at HubSpot, we’re dedicated to helping our customers succeed. By working with Balance to support customers through B2B eCommerce, we can enable businesses to run more efficiently, secure additional monetization options, and spend less time managing disjointed payments experiences and more time focusing on their core products and services. We’re confident that Balance will be the trusted payments infrastructure partner for digital transforming B2B businesses and we’re thrilled to partner with them on that journey.
Learn more about Balance here or read the recent press release here.
