The post was originally published in Russian on Startup of the Day. Alexander kindly agreed to republish what we think is of great value to our readers.
The seller bills the buyer. The buyer shows the bill to someone, this someone approves it, gets it signed somewhere, and at the very end of this chain, someone finally clicks the button in an online store. This is a lot of manual work, and, by the way, this work doesn’t always get done well. D Do you remember the go-getting Lithuanian who simply sent fabricated bills to American IT giants and got 100 million dollars for made-up services? He got caught and put in prison, but how many like him remain in their happy oblivion? In the meantime, as the approvals go on, the buyer sits with their money gone and troubles themselves – will it come, will they not change their mind, will they not get bankrupt while I wait. And maybe it’s okay with a one-time payment, but when the cooperation is long-term, this happens every month.
Anchor, the American startup of the day, suggests a different approach. The parties put their e-signatures under an agreement on its platform, then the buyer attaches their bank account, – and that’s it. The seller writes an invoice, the software verifies that the invoice is in accordance with the agreed terms, and Anchor instantly draws the money. The landing pages call it ‘no surprises for the buyer’ – meaning that the agreement is signed, and the invoice is connected to it, so there can be no surprises.
Naturally, one needs to have a lot of trust in the supplier. But if we have actually agreed on 500 bucks a month for this company’s accountant services, and the limit is set in Anchor, – then why not. It’s more convenient for the buyer, too. After all, as individuals, we do connect our cards to apps without any second thought, and they draw something without approvals, – it works, and frauds are seldom.
The startup brought in USD 15M of investments one year ago.
#rounda #usa #fintech #payments #crm
Translation: Kostiantyn Tupikov
Alexander made his career in Russian internet companies including Mail.Ru, Rambler, RBC. From 2016 to 2018 he was Chief Strategy and Analytics officer in Mail.Ru Group. In this position, he worked on M&A, investments, and new project launches. In 2018 he became Deputy CEO in Citymobil, a Russian Uber-like company that was invested by Mail.Ru Group and Sberbank (the biggest Russian bank), then he left the company to launch his own projects. Now Alexander is a co-founder of United Investors – the platform for co-investments in Russian early-stage startups. His blog #startupoftheday (#стартапдня) is one of the most popular blogs about startups in Russia.
