Pipe Taps $6 Million of Seed Funding to Launch SaaS Financing Platform
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
Software as a service (SaaS) companies face a constant problem. They need money upfront to fund operations but their customers want to pay monthly. That means SaaS companies have to either provide discounts upwards of 40% for upfront payments or raise more capital, which hurts existing shareholders.
Enter Pipe, a new platform launched last September that enables companies with recurring revenues to tap into their deferred cash flows with an instant cash advance against the full annual value of software subscriptions. Facilities range from $10,000 to several million dollars per month, depending on the size of companies.
Pipe announced Tuesday it has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Fika Ventures, MaC Ventures, Naval Ravikant, WorkLife Ventures, Liquid2 and The Weekend Fund.
"Until now, the main financing option for SaaS companies has been dilutive equity rounds," said David Sacks, Co-Founder & General Partner at Craft Ventures, in a statement. "Pipe is the tool every SaaS founder has been waiting for. It allows SaaS companies to grow without dilution by financing their SaaS receivables."
Pipe is led by entrepreneurs Harry Hurst, Josh Mangel, and Zain Allarakhia. Hurst previously founded the car booking platform, Skurt, which was acquired by Fair.com for $50 million in 2018.
Pipe has offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco with support functions in Phoenix.
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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