Blockchain payments startup Paystand raises $20M Series B to scale operations 

California-based blockchain payments startup Paystand, which claims to provide PayPal’s Venmo-like payments for enterprises, has raised $20 million in a Series B funding round.

The round saw participation from new investors such as DNX Ventures (formerly Draper Nexus), Battery Ventures and Epic Ventures, as well as existing investors including Leap Global Partners and BlueRun Ventures, among others, according to a statement shared with The Block on Thursday.

BlueRun Ventures also led early rounds in PayPal and later exited its investment when the payments giant got acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. eBay then exited PayPal in 2015. Today, the market value of PayPal is over $140 billion.

“We've seen significant disruption in consumer payments from companies like Venmo, PayPal, and Square Cash,” said Mitch Kitamura, a managing director at DNX Ventures. “However, US B2B [business-to-business] payments represent an even larger opportunity -- currently over half of the $25 trillion in B2B invoices are still paid in paper check.”

Automated payments 

Paystand said its blockchain-based real-time payments network provides a zero-fee, subscription model, which helps automate the cash cycle for companies and helps save them over 50% on the cost of accepting payments and processing invoices.

“We made a promise to reboot commercial finance because it’s insecure, inefficient and built on trustless networks and technology,” said Jeremy Almond, CEO of Paystand. 

Some of Paystand’s clients include Japanese credit-card company JCB, US-based foam fabricator maker Allied Aerofoam, and Vast Bank, per the statement. Paystand also claims to have “two of the largest airlines, eight of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies” and “all five branches of the US military” as its clients.

Founded in 2013, Paystand said over 160,000 businesses are currently transacting on its payment network. The firm also boasts a 2.5x year-on-year increase in revenue in the last two years. It did not disclose specific numbers.

With the fresh capital in place through the Series B round, Paystand said it will expand its products and services, as well as grow its sales, marketing and engineering teams in its California and Mexico offices. 

The round brings the firm’s total funding raised to date to $28.3 million, according to Crunchbase.