Balance, one of the leading players in B2B and e-commerce payments sector, has recently received $56 million in its Series B funding round. To date, the fintech firm has raised a total of $87 million.

The funding round, which was led by Forerunner Ventures, witnessed participation from prominent investors, including Salesforce Ventures, Hubspot Ventures, Lyra Ventures and Gramercy Ventures. Balance aims to use the latest funding for the expansion of its offerings to facilitate the growth of B2B merchants.

The global demand for B2B payments has surged sharply in the past few years amid growing interest in the e-commerce sector. According to an estimate, approximately 30% of global economic activity will shift to e-commerce by 2025.

“For years, the consumer has led the charge in modernizing how we transact, but innovation in B2B commerce has lagged far behind the B2C space,” said Kirsten Green, the Founder & Managing Partner at Forerunner. “There is incredible potential to modernize wide-ranging aspects of how B2B commerce is conducted in the digital age, and the market opportunity is enormous, only 7% of the $120T B2B payment volume is conducted digitally today. We are thrilled to partner with Bar and the team at Balance as they work to accelerate the transformation of this industry.”

B2B Payments

Nowi Kallen, the Managing Director at Salesforce Ventures, believes that the B2B payments sector provides a wide range of growth opportunities. Kallen added that the B2B payments platform of Balance will become the industry standard in the coming years.

“Secure and seamless digital payment products are essential in the rapidly expanding B2B e-commerce marketplace, but many of the available solutions offer an outdated and fragmented experience for most B2B financial transactions,” said Brandon Greer, the Head of HubSpot Ventures. “Balance’s end-to-end checkout solution removes the friction from the payments process and enables companies to deliver the cohesive buying experiences today’s customers expect.”