{"id":42214,"date":"2023-10-20T15:19:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sydney-startup-ezycollect-closes-1-25-million-seed-round-as-it-looks-to-revolutionise-the-way-smes-get-paid-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:19:34","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:19:34","slug":"sydney-startup-ezycollect-closes-1-25-million-seed-round-as-it-looks-to-revolutionise-the-way-smes-get-paid-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sydney-startup-ezycollect-closes-1-25-million-seed-round-as-it-looks-to-revolutionise-the-way-smes-get-paid-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney startup ezyCollect closes $1.25 million seed round as it looks to revolutionise the way SMEs get paid – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sydney startup aiming to help SMEs get paid quickly and smoothly has closed an oversubscribed $1.25 million seed round as it looks to expand across Australia.<\/p>\n

EzyCollect offers a cloud-based platform helping companies with debt collection through fully automated follow-up emails, SMS and dispute management.<\/p>\n

The funding round in the startup was led by Tank Stream Ventures and comes more than 18 months after the platform was launched.<\/p>\n

EzyCollect founder Arjun Singh says this time was crucial for validating the business proposition and getting traction that helped when pitching to investors, with the company now having more than 1000 users across eight countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a bit more than a concept\u2013 we had customers and revenue,\u201d Singh tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a clear indication that this is more than a concept, it\u2019s an actual business. Fintech is a pretty hot space at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by personal experience<\/h3>\n

After getting the lead investor on board, Singh says the round was closed in only a few months, and the cash injection to be used primarily for raising awareness of their offering in the SME community, as well as further product development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a new space and it\u2019s about making sure businesses know they can automate this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very much about the top of the funnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh is a former small business owner and says he personally experienced the challenges of debt collection and the inefficient methods that are currently used.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost busineses look at solutions like hiring new people or P2P lending, but they\u2019re very much band-aid solutions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re good solutions when you need cash in the bank but it\u2019s not solving the core problem of getting customers to pay you faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the ezyCollect platform is based around taking a proactive approach to payments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to change the payment culture from a reactive one to proactive using a cost-efficient manner,\u201d he says.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focusing locally first<\/h3>\n

While initially planning a rapid global expansion, Singh says he wants to first gain further traction locally before looking to go international.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to go to the US tomorrow and burn cash by going overseas,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was my first instinct but I\u2019ve learnt that there\u2019s a market big enough here, so let\u2019s get market space here and then go there once we\u2019re saturated. That\u2019s the objective.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says it\u2019s crucial for other founders and entrepreneurs to be as open as possible during the fundraising process.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe very transparent from day one,\u201d Singh says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not transparent they\u2019re going to find out the truth. You need to be upfront about what\u2019s good and what\u2019s bad in your business.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that startups also need to make sure they\u2019re getting a fair deal from investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave bloody good lawyers,\u201d Singh says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake advice and ask other people who they used. We were lucky with Tank Stream but some of the term sheets we got from other VCs were really not that great.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also pays to wait until your company has paying customers and is fully operating before turning to investors, Singh says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet some runs on the board,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really difficult to run the business and be raising money. All the spare time at night you\u2019re working on pitch decks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe closed it in three months but if we hadn\u2019t done that I could see the business really suffering. Raising money is a full-time focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, <\/em>LinkedIn <\/em>and <\/em>SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sydney startup aiming to help SMEs get paid quickly and smoothly has closed an oversubscribed $1.25 million seed round<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}