Yesterday we posted about iLoveRewards closing a big growth round from Sequoia. Well today, another JLA Ventures company did a big round of growth money as well. Paymentus raised a big round from Accel-KKR, rumoured to be at $20mm. That’s $45mm in capital to two Canadian companies in a very short period of time. I imagine John Albright, @johnalbright, has enjoyed a celebratory cocktail or two after seeing two portfolio co’s do big growth rounds. Lets also not forget the story of Dushyant Sharma who looks well on his way to yet another entrepreneurial highlight reel entry. And of course big hats off to GrowthWorks for being the initial funders of this company and providing funds to Canadian companies when many others were not. PR post is here.
Paymentus Corporation, a leading electronic bill payment, presentment and customer communication technology and services company, today announced that it has received an equity investment provided by Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity investment firm. The investment will be used by Paymentus to accelerate development, drive growth, and enhance the footprint of its real-time payment network.
Paymentus’ unified, SaaS platform delivers enterprise bill payment, presentment and revenue management technology through a self-service model, simplifying, automating and streamlining the bill payment process.
I found an old post from Rick Segal, @ricksegal, about the initial investment JLA did in Paymentus, which I think is a valuable repetitive lesson for all entrepreneurs about how to build a big successful company (something Dushyant has done a few times now):
We invested in Paymentus for a number of reasons. Our basic business thesis was that there are a number of places where (surprisingly) automation of paying certain types of bills is still in an evolving state. Paymentus has identified a number of these market segments and came to us with some great traction, proprietary technology, tons of industry knowledge, and an impressive plan for growth.
Dushyant did all the right things as a start up. Self-funded until he hit milestones that started to prove out the business stood out to the investors as well as a very clear and deep understanding of the bill payment and presentment business.
We’ve done the list of acquisitions and celebrated, I think next up its time to tally the list of big raises, as I think there are more companies “going big” than we give credit.
Good writeup, Dan. I spent three years on the Paymentus’ board with Dushyant and I can tell you the guy is one of the best entrepreneurs we have in North America, forget just Canada. Paymentus is a great made-in-Canada story that is going big by raising a huge round from a blue chip backer like Accel-KKR. Stay tuned, this guy is just getting started.
I thought GrowthWorks was the first VC in to Paymentus. According to the GrowthWorks/VenGrowth filing GrowthWorks owned 41.38% of Paymentus after Series A, so I’m guessing that means that JLA must have owned much less. Even if you read the initial press release it has a quote from Tim Lee.
GrowthWorks was definitely first money in. 12/1/2005 $600k http://www.growthworks.ca/funds/ontario/gw-commercialization-fund/portfolio.asp
Makes me think GW was the big money prior to Accel-KKR.
Plus hopefully it means that GW got to take some of this off the table with the new Accel-KKR money. Hopefully meaning that additional capital can be deployed out the funds to continue to help Canadian entrepreneurs.
41.38% ownership after Series A [$1500k] gives us a $3.625MM post money or $2.125MM premoney. For those doing the venture math (this doesn’t include the $600k that GW put in Dec 2005 in the seed round).
It’s not Valley numbers, but then we don’t live in the Valley. And as everyone has stated, this is a great example of a spectacular Cdn startup. And it demonstrates that the numbers don’t matter a whole lot in the end.
GW did the original seed round in and we brought in JLA (@ricksegal) as a new lead on the Series A round.
sorry for the miss. I added GW to the story.