HighRadius, which has developed AI-powered fintech software, announced Thursday morning that it has further expanded its relationship with Commerce Bank.
The enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) unicorn first partnered with the bank in 2018 and has continued to build on that relationship since, according to Sayid Shabeer, HighRadius’ chief product officer.
Banking is a big and growing sector of focus for Houston-based HighRadius, which kicked off 2020 with $125 million in a Series B growth funding round led by ICONIQ Capital. Existing backers Susquehanna Growth Equity and Citi Ventures also participated in that financing, which valued the company at “more than $1 billion.”
Founded in 2006, HighRadius may not technically be a “startup” in the literal sense of the word. It has, however, notably only taken external capital in recent years.
The company describes itself as a “SaaS provider for integrated receivables, such as credit, cash application, EIPP, collections, deductions, and payments.” In other words, the platform aims to automate routing receivables and payments processes (such as predicting invoice payment dates, for example) across a variety of functions via AI and machine learning. Its white-labeled software is integrated into its partners’ offerings.
As part of the newly expanded agreement with Commerce Bank, which has $26.1 billion in assets, the full suite of HighRadius’ Integrated Receivables and Treasury Management products will be made available to Commerce Bank’s clients.
In 2019, HighRadius integrated its Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) and Virtual Card Processing (VCP) tools into Commerce Bank’s offerings.
COVID-19 impact
Many financial institutions have had to move quickly to adapt to the increasingly digital environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Shabeer said corporate clients are looking for banks to help them modernize their accounts receivable and treasury operations. And that’s where HighRadius hopes to come in. (It also works with Bank of America and Citibank, among other banks).
Todd Adler, Commerce Bank’s senior vice president, director of treasury management services, said: “The world is changing more quickly than ever and our opportunity lies in evolving alongside it…We’re excited to take our clients through a digital transformation journey with our relationship with HighRadius.”
In general, businesses are looking to technology to “get their jobs done faster and better,” Shabeer told FinLedger.
“Whether it’s due to mandates or part of their digital transformation strategy, we’re seeing clients’ needs to move to cloud solutions shift from something they were doing over a five-year-period to being compressed into this one year,” he said.
In particular, Shabeer added, the three things HighRadius has been hearing from CFOs or receivables managers – especially after COVID hit – were that they: a) wanted to be better able to predict their cash flow for improved decision-making around working capital b) needed to improve cash collections and c) needed help getting paid electronically.
“Demand this year has been pretty robust as more businesses are putting money into their technology and digital transformation,” he said.
At the beginning of 2020, HighRadius had more than 400 customers, including over 200 of the Forbes Global 2000 such as Walmart, Nike and Procter & Gamble, and claimed to process more than $1 trillion in transactions per year.