Fundbox, creators of the data-driven risk engine, has secured $17.5MM in funding led by Khosla Ventures to fill the void left by banks and credit companies, and fix the small business economy using data science. Khosla Ventures joins an all-star team of investors including Ron Conway's SV Angels, Vikram Pandit, former CEO of Citigroup, Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters, Jay Mandelbaum, former Head of Strategy and E-commerce at JP Morgan Chase, Emil Michael, SVP of Business at Uber, Shlomo Kramer, CEO Imperva, David Krell, Chairman ISE and several other distinguished investors. The investment will be used to scale the data operations and product, increase marketing outreach efforts, expand the Fundbox San Francisco headquarters, and make additional strategic hires in the Bay Area.

'We've identified an unprecedented opportunity to bring data-driven innovation to a critically underserved and broken market, focused initially on allowing small businesses to immediately clear outstanding invoices and improve cash flow by accelerating payments,' said Fundbox Founder and CEO Eyal Shinar. 'However, the vision behind our company is much larger, as our proprietary engine can dramatically disrupt and modernize entire industries built around analyzing data. We are starting with small business credit because this is where we can have a significant and immediate positive impact, but the future is boundless.'

Fundbox processes tens of thousands of invoices daily, offering small business owners the ability to fix their cash flow by advancing payments for unpaid invoices. This effectively eliminates the net plus 30, 60, 90-day problem from which so many small businesses suffer, a problem that inhibits growth. Unlike traditional credit companies or alternative factoring companies, Fundbox keeps customer control at the forefront of its product with an emphasis on simple user experience, clean design and total transparency. Unlike with other players Fundbox rewards customers who receive funds and repay them early, with refunds for early repayment and lower fees the more they use the product.

In order to use Fundbox, a small business owner or bookkeeper simply connects with one-click to their accounting and bookkeeping apps, including Quickbooks, Xero, or Freshbooks, on Fundbox.com. The Fundbox risk engine assesses the customer's network and invoices for risk automatically and instantly. The user can then view all outstanding invoices through their Fundbox account and choose which invoices to clear. Fundbox accomplishes the underwriting by tapping into numerous sources of data, including the user's financial health, the demographics of their customers, and even the seasonal nature of some specific businesses. Money for funded invoices is transferred to the user's bank account the next business day.

'Every small business wishes for convenient access to capital at a fair price, but for most, that is just wishful thinking,' said David Weiden, Partner at Khosla Ventures. 'Fundbox leverages newly available cloud services and deep data science to deliver financial services that simply were not possible before, and that's the kind of disruption that can really affect an industry and build a great company.'

The Fundbox engine removes human error and bias from the risk assessment process; Fundbox leverages cutting-edge data science, behavioral analysis and finance theory to automatically analyze the user's business and invoices not only from a financial perspective, but also from behavioral and psychological perspectives. As a result, and in stark contrast to standard bank, factoring or credit processes, no amount of funding is too small, as the Fundbox assessment costs are virtually zero, and the business owner pays only for the funds he is actually using.

Thousands of small businesses around the US are using Fundbox each day to clear outstanding invoices and free up working capital. The company is based in San Francisco, California.

About Fundbox:

Fundbox leverages deep data analytics to accelerate cash flow and clear invoices for small business. The Fundbox risk engine taps into numerous data signals within its network to assess customers and invoices for risk automatically and instantly, allowing small businesses to choose which invoices to clear with a single click. Fundbox was founded in 2012 and is backed by leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, finance veterans, and venture capitalists including Khosla Ventures, SV Angels, and former CitiGroup CEO Vikram Pandit.