Fiserv, Capital One, others invest $150M in Melio

Dive Brief:

Melio, an accounts payable and receivable company that caters to small and mid-sized businesses, said in a press release last Thursday that it has raised $150 million in new “strategic funding,” with the payments processor Fiserv and the Capital One bank’s venture arm among a pack of investors.
Other investors also included the Canadian e-commerce company Shopify’s venture arm as well as the venture capital firms Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, Coatue Management, General Catalyst and Thrive Capital Management, per the Oct. 31 press release.
As part of the fundraising, New York-based Melio was valued at $2 billion, according to the release. The company plans to use the new capital to expand by way of its business-to-business partnerships, including with some of the investors, such as Milwaukee-based Fiserv.

Dive Insight:

Fiserv’s investment in Melio last month marks another development in the relationship between the two firms. Last year, Melio partnered with Fiserv to integrate its accounts receivable and accounts payable tools into Fiserv’s billing and merchant network, according to the press release. That has allowed Fiserv’s approximately 3,500 financial services customers to offer their SMB clients accounting software for cash flow and payments management.

In addition to tightening its bond to Fiserv, Melio’s recent investment round builds upon its relationship with Shopify.

Last year, Melio teamed up with Shopify to provide support for Shopify bill pay services, an accounts payable service that enables its merchants to pay and manage their business expenses, the company said in a press release at that time. The collaboration was Melio’s first embedded finance service with a commerce site, according to the announcement.

As investors have been lining up to pour money into Melio, reports of a potential sale of the company have swirled around it in the media. Last year, Bloomberg reported that the bill-payment firm Bill was in “advance talks” to buy Melio for $1.95 billion, but a top executive at the supposed acquirer denied the rumor.