Taulia to raise $60m from Ping An Insurance and JPMorgan
Taulia, the San Francisco-based fintech which provides supply chain management and financing software, is raising $60 million.
CEO and president Cedric Bru told the Wall Street Journal that China’s biggest insurer, Ping An Insurance, is leading the round.
The round will also include backing from JPMorgan’s strategic investment unit, and the venture arm of Saudi Aramco.
Taulia helps companies and suppliers manage cashflow
It is understood that the round could peg Taulia’s valuation at as much as $400 million. The new capital would go towards expansion and new product plans.
Taulia’s movements this year
Last month, Taulia partnered with UniCredit – one of Italy’s largest banks – to boost the bank’s trade finance capacity.
The supply chain has suffered since March, when coronavirus began to hamper many businesses’ liquidity.
This is why many banks are actively looking for ways to unlock trapped cash and speed up payments. Some suggested early payments as a source of liquidity, a method banks like Nordea deployed early on in the pandemic.
JPMorgan partnered with Taulia back in April so it could inject and redeploy liquidity to its suppliers. At the time, the major US bank called it a “strategic alliance”, alluding to the potential for investment later down the line.
The fintech’s partnerships with UniCredit and JPMorgan broke its exclusive relationship with SoftBank-backed supply chain financer, Greensill.
Taulia’s offering
Taulia helps companies and suppliers manage cashflow by connecting them with a platform they can enter invoices into.
Suppliers can get paid early, either from the companies who owe it or by third-party lenders – in which case the owing company pays the lender direct.
The fintech claims that a network of two million businesses use its technology and that it processes over $500 billion every year. Its clients include Airbus, Nissan, and Vodafone.
In the second quarter of this year, it financed more than $7.5 billion of invoices.
Read next: UniCredit teams with fintech Taulia to boost trade finance capacity
