3 reasons why Flyer One Ventures invested in Tilta

3 reasons why Flyer One Ventures invested in Tilta

By Oleksii Yermolenko, Сo-founder & Partner at F1V

Startup Tilta, which streamlines B2B online payments, secured its latest seed round in 2024.

We invested in the company alongside ff Venture Capital, Dreamcraft Ventures, 10x Founders, and some other VCs. To date, it has raised €34M over four funding rounds.

Here are three reasons why Flyer One Ventures has backed Tilta.

Reason #1: Founded by second-time entrepreneurs with successful exit

Jan Enno Einfeld, Ingmar Stupp, and Christoph Nicola co-founded Tilta in 2022 and built the MVP with $100k within six months — enough to land their first paying clients. It's almost too good to be true: It took other teams about two years and $8M to launch a similar product.

The co-founders have an impressive fintech background and worked together for years. They co-founded in 2016 and sold in 2022 a startup in the same niche.

Finiata, their former brainchild, is a platform that provided lending services to businesses. It had raised a total of €25M from high-profile investors, including Point Nine Capital, DN Capital, and KAYA VC.

Jan Enno Einfeld has been in finance for over 20 years. He managed investments at Comdirect Bank for 10 years and worked for six years in M&A.

Ingmar Stupp has 17 years of experience in product and web development under his belt. The third co-founder, Christoph Nicola, is a pro in finance automation, M&A, and risk management, with over 15 years in the field.

The founders know every little detail of their business and market. Their team consists of 15 people, 10 of whom worked together before. This team size is sufficient to lead the company to Series B.

Reason #2: Killer platform streamlining B2B payments

Online payments between businesses are a pot of "hot mess," as one of Tilta's founders once said. They are inefficient, risky, and drain a lot of resources. Companies have to hire dozens of people to manage crazy-complicated workflows around their sales.

Sellers usually demand upfront payments, while buyers want post-payment terms — this mismatch slows down transactions, hurting business flow and liquidity.

Tilta solves these bottlenecks: B2B e-commerce platforms and marketplaces connect Tilta’s API-powered checkout to their websites or apps. This allows buyers to postpone payments for 30, 60, or 90 days, while sellers receive full payment right away.

Unlike its rivals, Tilta goes beyond just offering a BNPL (buy now, pay later) tool at checkout. It seamlessly integrates with its clients’ platforms, streamlining the entire transaction process and handling operational workflows.

The startup also ensures its clients won't face common inconveniences like checkout denials or split invoices.

Reason #3: Booming industry that lacks digitization

Tilta chose the right time to launch. The B2B e-commerce market in Europe is massive: $1.3T in 2022, projected to hit $1.8T by 2025.

Nearly 40% of European companies are now active in B2B e-commerce, and over 90% plan to enter this space. Plus, one in four companies generates over 80% of their revenue from e-commerce.

European BNPL is expected to grow into a €300B industry by 2025, while more businesses are getting used to postponing payments to their suppliers.

Still, B2B payments seem to be stuck in the 1990s: About 90% of the transactions are buried in paper-based invoices. Making things worse, roughly less than 10% of B2B sales currently involve installments.

But this niche has picked up in recent years. Most of Tilta's rivals launched 2-3 years ago and attracted funding from notable investors like USV, Creandum, Blossom Capital, Cherry Ventures, LocalGlobe, and others. So it’s a good time to swoop in.

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A bit more about the startup

Tilta facilitates payments between businesses and their suppliers or buyers, helping them to increase profit margins, retain more customers, and ease sales operations.

The startup offers its white-labeled infrastructure to B2B e-commerce companies and marketplaces for a fee, which means they can use this technology under their own brand.

If you are an early-stage startup founder building a company that aligns with our investment thesis and seeking to raise funds, you can send your pitch to F1V: Use our Typeform. Hope we can work together.

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