UK-based Satago, which officially launched at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe in Berlin last year, has secured a $1 million second round funding to expand its automated credit control business. The startup previously raised $48,500 (£30,000) from 61 investors in 15 days through the crowdfunding platform Seedrs. Interestingly for a UK-based startup, most of the investment round came via AngelList, which connects Angel investors to startups.
The main investors were E-merge in Belgium; BDMI (the VC arm of Bertelsmann – the big German publishing group); Edward Wray (Betfair founder); and William Reeve (LOVEFiLM co-founder).
Satago automates credit control, enabling small businesses and freelancers to get paid on time. They simply link their accounting software to Satago, and the platform anonymously reports when they get paid by their clients to all those who share that payments date data. Everything happens automatically.
According to some figures, SMEs in the UK are paid 41 days late on average, creating big cash flow issues. The EU estimates this leads to up to 25% of company bankruptcies.
On the AngelList issue, they got featured and then got lots of top level investor interest, although AngelList is not available as an investment platform in Europe yet.