Edison Partners, 281 Witherspoon Street, Suite 300, Princeton 08540. 609-896-1900. Chris Sugden, managing partner. www.edisonpartners.com.
Edison Partners, the growth equity investment firm, has invested $9 million in Chicago-based Bento for Business, business-to-business financial management company. Bento will use the funds to accelerate sales and marketing and continue product innovation of its payments, spend management, and business banking platform.
Bento’s platforms are aimed at curbing employee theft via fraudulent expense reimbursement. The card-based digital spend management platform enables businesses to manage employee spending at the point of sale, prior to purchase.
“Today’s business banking is failing small and midsized companies. There is a massive long tail market that would prefer to not give their employees a commercial credit line, petty cash, and per diems, nor deal with the challenges of non-approved purchases ex post,” said Michael Kopelman, general partner at Edison Partners, who led the investment. “Bento is creating a new, modular treasury management and banking suite for these businesses.”
“We’re impressed by Bento’s growth orientation and discipline for building rock-solid products that deliver bottom-line customer benefit,” added Kelly Ford, partner at Edison Partners. “Bento’s customer uptake and financial momentum has been striking.” In the last twelve months, the company has tripled revenues and doubled its customer base. Additionally, Bento recently announced a virtual card platform and open API strategy, partnerships with The Brink’s Company and payments processor i2c, and recognition as a Startup of the Year from Pay Awards.
