Small business payments startup Statement has secured £1.5m in its pre-seed round led by venture capital firm Northzone to launch in the UK.
Statement provides a platform for SMBs to compare payments providers and claims it can save merchants “up to £5,400 annually” in card payment fees.
SMBs import their payment contracts onto Statement, which extracts the relevant details and then compares it to other offerings. Statement says its platform can compare settlement times, contract lengths and monthly charges.
It was founded this year at talent investor Entrepreneur First by CEO Ed Hardy and CTO Olivia Stannah.
In addition to Northzone, the pre-seed funds came from Notion Capital, Entrepreneur First, Triple Point Ventures, TinyVC and angels.
Charlie Songhurst, Chris Adelsbach, Chris Mairs, together with Credit Kudos founder and CEO Freddy Kelly were included as part of the angel group. Apple acquired Credit Kudos in March 2022 for an undisclosed sum.
Ed Hardy, CEO of Statement, said: “90% of contracts are still signed through telesales or field sales making it hard to quickly search the market.
“We’re building the technology to create a more transparent payment industry where businesses can compare and board to their chosen provider online, cutting the process of finding the right provider from days down to minutes.”