Since the start of COVID-19, 97% of businesses have experienced some form of supply chain disruption. Enterprises realise that they need to diversify both their suppliers and supply chain management to remain resilient, reduce costs and support their small and long-tail suppliers who are struggling to survive.

Tom Howsam, Co-Founder and CEO of Paid, said: “Every SME who has ever dealt with large enterprises knows the pain and the time it takes to do even a simple thing like onboarding as a supplier, signing a contract, or getting paid on time. What they may not know is that that frustration is usually shared by the enterprise buyer, whose internal, one-size fits all process means they can’t move quickly.”

Paid’s software transforms the procure-to-pay process, enabling efficient onboarding, project scoping, sign off and invoicing - all in one easy-to-use product. Paid’s software platform is simple to implement and integrate, allowing enterprises to get up and running in days and onboard suppliers in just ten minutes.

With an easier system to manage suppliers of all sizes, enterprises can reduce costs by up to 75% better support the small suppliers that they rely on, and offer suppliers an instant payment option on the Paid platform. At launch, Paid is live with one of the UK’s top telco companies that spends billions annually to manage tens of thousands of suppliers.

Cyril Pourrat, Chief Procurement Officer at BT, commented: “Companies, including BT, can incur huge costs when onboarding and managing suppliers. We needed a better, more agile way to manage our suppliers and Paid solves that problem, offering us a way to save man-hours and money in one easy-to-use solution. Paid, who are part of BT’s Procurement Digital Garage, has managed to reduce these costs, providing an easy and efficient way to work with smaller suppliers.”

Paid was founded in late 2018 and participated in the Barclays London Accelerator, powered by Techstars, in January 2019. Paid is currently six employees and is based in Darlington in North East England, with some of the team in London. With the new funding, Paid aims to double its team by the end of the year, hiring product, engineering and customer success team members as it grows its customer base.

Jeremy Roche, Founder of FinancialForce and Paid’s new Chairman, added: “What really excites me about Paid is the way the team has built a comprehensive platform to solve a complex, real-world problem that every enterprise faces - how to handle their long tail procure-to-pay process in a cost-effective way, allowing them to access the most innovative suppliers quickly and easily. This is the most intuitively designed solution I have seen to minimise effort for both enterprise buyers and their SME suppliers, removing friction from the procurement process and maximising benefits for both sides of the transaction.”

Krishna Visvanathan, Founding Partner at Crane Venture Partners, added: “Paid offers an intuitive software-as-a-service platform that reinvents the procurement process. For enterprises and small suppliers alike, using Paid is a no-brainer, making it easier to manage a diverse supply chain through uncomplicated software. We are proud to back Paid as it builds a new category for supplier management in procure-to-pay transformation for enterprises.”