Payabli raises $12M for SaaS-focused payment platform

By Riley Kaminer

Payments are typically seen as a mundane but necessary part of what enables a business to function. But Miami-based Payabli is building a platform not just to make payments work – but for them to actually enhance the customer experience.

To accomplish this mission, Payabli has raised $12 million: a $4 million seed round in May 2022 followed by $8 million that was announced today. Institutional investors include TTV Capital, Fika Ventures and Bling Capital. Some FinTech angels also contributed, such as serial founder Louis Beryl and investor Ershad Jamil.

Payabli’s suite of tools enable their clients – primarily independent software vendors – to accept payments from customers, automate payouts to vendors, and optimize their ever-growing payment stack.

Already, Payabli has had a significant amount of traction, tripling their growth in 2022 to 7 figures in net revenue, securing several billion dollars in committed gross managed volume and growing from 6 to 28 employees. The startup plans to leverage these funds to continue this growth trajectory, make it easier for software companies to implement Payabli’s tools, and further develop their product.

“There’s a tectonic shift of trillions of dollars of payments volume migrating from legacy systems and distribution to Vertical SaaS companies,” asserted co-founder and co-CEO Joseph Elias Phillips, who previously ran the sales efforts for ServiceTitan, a digital platform for home and commercial contractors.

“At ServiceTitan, we experienced first hand the incredible power of unlocking latent revenue from Payments and other embedded finance products,” continued Phillips. “We created Payabli to make it much easier for Software companies to build, manage and scale their own Payments Business.”

Sharing the CEO title with Phillips is Miami-based payments veteran William Corbera. Previously, Corbera founded RevoPayments, a leading payment platform for HOAs and property managers.

“We solved for the most complex verticals and use-cases, as a way of ensuring our product had depth,” Corbera said in a statement. “Moreover, we knew that for every Pay-In use case, merchants had myriad Pay-Out use cases that were very lucrative.”

“Despite the need, there was a significant gap in the market for infrastructure that seamlessly marries payment acceptance with payment Issuance to drive new revenue for software companies. We’re effectively giving software companies the ability to embed their own Bill.com type of solution for their customers’ use.”

Through Payabli’s API, companies are able to integrate omni-channel payment acceptance capabilities like invoicing, virtual terminals, and subscription billing. The ultimate goal: create products to help SaaS companies simplify their accounts payable processes.

“We strongly believe that brands, merchants, and ISVs of any size should be able to transform payments from a complex and laborious cost center to a meaningful revenue driver that actually enhances their end customer experience,” commenced Gabriella Brignardello, vice president at Fika Ventures. “Payabli’s turnkey solution has made this possible, and we have full confidence in this team’s ability to win in the market with Jo and Will at the helm.”

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Riley Kaminer