Tradeshift goes for alternative funding and appears to shelf planned IPO, for now

Tradeshift has today
announced it received a new round of funding amounting to $240 million in equity
and debt. The near-quarter, a billion additional capital, was obtained from new
and existing investors.

The firm, which made founded in 2008, set out to disrupt the conventional
supply chain payments and marketplaces.

Tradeshift plans to use the money to bolster its growth, and set the
firm to what it describes as “a direct path to profitability in the near
future.”

The new round of funding will effectively cause a delay in the company’s
planned IPO perhaps to “put its house in
order” in the wake of bad tidings for tech firms since last year’s failed
WeWork IPO, and dwindling fortunes for listed tech firms including Uber, Lyft,
and Peloton. The market has since developed cold feet towards tech unicorns.

However, the firm seems to be coming from a position of relative strength
when it comes to its financials. A recent statement by Tradeshift indicated
that it had seen significant growth in its quarterly revenues, having
registered a 60% growth in revenue throughout last year, and a whopping 250
closed deals. The statement further acknowledged that more than 40% of its
cumulative transactions were realised in 2019.

The additional capital will also help fast-track growth in its other
product lines, including Tradeshift Pay, a tool that was last year ranked the
industry’s most robust ePayables SaaS solution by Ardent Partners.

Its other core product is Tradeshift Go, an app that allows employees to
request access to their
corporate cards without exposing a company’s card details. Tradeshift Go
boasts of more than
200 new signings in 2019 alone.

The tech firm is also planning on monetising its trade finance
proposition across a database of more than two million vendors.

“The additional funding we’ve secured is a testament to
the belief the investor community has in our vision and our business model. As
a network business, growth is always going to be a key part of our story. But
it’s also important that we manage that growth responsibly,” Tradeshift CEO Mr
Christian Lanng said in a statement.

The fintech company is also planning to review operating costs downwards
to align overheads with revenue ahead of its IPO. To that end, the firm will be
cutting down its workforce budget in the San Francisco office and channel the
resources to more affordable locations.