Three reasons why we invested in AccessPay: building the future of payments
By: Maria Wagner
Tags: Venture Capital, Beringea Insights, Fintech

We have hit the ground running in 2019 at Beringea. In the UK, we have launched our first ever office in Manchester alongside a landmark investment by our UK funds in AccessPay, a B2B fintech company solving a major pain point for corporates across the country.

I first met Anish Kapoor, the CEO of AccessPay, at a pitching event where his business stood head and shoulders above his peers. Over the following months, a clear investment thesis developed and convinced us to lead a £9m investment in the business alongside US investors True Ventures and Route 66 — here are three reasons why we believe AccessPay is such an exceptional company.

The AccessPay platform transform the time and cost of corporates making payments

1. Corporate payments: addressing the pain point

Corporate payments are certainly not the glitzy poster child of fintech. The more glamorous consumer side of fintech, with challenger banks, cryptocurrency wallets and cheaper transfers, has dominated innovation and secured immense investment in recent years.

And yet, ensuring that businesses pay their staff and suppliers correctly, on time, and efficiently is a cornerstone of financial services. The situation is complicated by the fact that the majority of core accounting systems used by corporates do not link directly into the banks.

In the UK, the banks clubbed together several decades ago to develop BACS, a standardised system for clearing and settling automated payments. However, companies need to ensure that payments are translated into the code used by BACS. This is a laborious administrative task that drains the resources of corporate finance and treasury teams.

Enter AccessPay. Its cloud-based platform integrates with corporate ERP and accounting systems, translating the information into the standardised format required by the banks. In addition, it’s cloud-based, and hence can be accessed from anywhere, and offers workflow management tools, which makes the lives of those involved a lot easier. The corporate teams using AccessPay’s platform report up to 90 per cent reduction in the time and costs of processing regular batch payments. This frees up tremendous amounts of resource for more valuable tasks.

2. A global market lacking innovation

Further afield, there is a substantial global opportunity as well. Many of AccessPay’s current clients are global organisations that make substantial cross-border and multi-currency payments. As a result, AccessPay developed an international payments module that provides corporates with access to the SWIFT network, a global network for communicating financial transactions in a secure and standardised format — it is in fact the only UK software company to offer this service.

AccessPay has also developed a cash management module that enables customers to create an immediate snapshot of their cash positions across bank accounts, currencies and countries around the world. It is traditionally very time-consuming for corporates to create that snapshot which means their cash positions may not be optimised on a day-to-day basis. This module has proved remarkably valuable for the customers.

3. A team with a track record

Experience, expertise, and leadership are the vital ingredients of a team seeking to scale an international success story. The team at AccessPay has these qualities in abundance.

Anish Kapoor is a CEO with exceptional experience and a proven ability to lead businesses through the scale-up journey. Few entrepreneurs that we meet can say they have listed a business for £700m, but Anish managed this with the first venture he co-founded, TeleCity, which grew to become Europe’s largest data centre operator before its acquisition for $3.8bn in 2016.

His drive to build successful businesses motivated him to subsequently found yuuguu, a video-conferencing service that was acquired by market leader PowWowNow. Anish is therefore a leader with a proven track record in building operations, strategy and culture to deliver meaningful growth — a quality that we value incredibly highly at Beringea.

His leadership has also meant that he has been able to surround himself with a team packed with expertise and insights that will support his ambitions for the business. James Higgins, AccessPay’s Product Director, has substantial expertise in the payments industry, having previously been Head of Cash Management and a Global Product Manager at BNY Mellon, while Dan Greenall, Marketing Director, joined from Daisy, a leading telecoms challenger, where he was Head of Marketing.

This core team has already demonstrated its ability to build exceptional products, secure a leading roster of clients, and grow an ambitious business. We are excited for the next steps in this journey!