US-based venture capital firm Headline has led a $100 million Series B funding round for “business banking in a box” fintech Zeller.
Industry superannuation fund Hostplus also participated in the round along with existing investors, Square Peg Capital and US firms Addition – founded by former Tiger Global Partner Lee Fixel – and Spark Capital.
In a 3 March announcement, Zeller said the latest raise doubled the company’s valuation to over $1 billion and it had now raised $181 million since June 2020. That makes the business the fastest tech start-up to reach Australian dollar unicorn status.
The new capital will be used to accelerate development of Zeller’s product range to “further reimagine and replace traditional payments and banking services”.
Despite providing an offering designed to be taken up as new small businesses were created, Zeller said 80% of customers acquired so far had switched from traditional banks and most had adopted products beyond the basic payments processing facilities. The extras had included online payment acceptance, credit and debit cards with additional features, an expense management facility and loans.
Melbourne-based Zeller was founded by Ben Pfisterer, the former Australia and Asia-Pacific head of US-founded payments app Square (now Block) and Dominic Yap, Square’s former regional strategy and growth lead.
Square Peg Capital led Zeller’s $6.3 million seed investment round in 2020 with Sydney-based Apex Capital Management and Australian online loans business Athena also contributing.
Addition led Zeller’s $25 million Series A funding round in March 2021. Square Peg and Apex supported that round.
Spark Capital, an early investor in Twitter and Slack, led a $50 million investment round in Zeller which closed just before the company’s commercial launch in May 2021. That round was supported by Apex Capital and Addition.
Zeller’s banking in a box package includes an EFTPOS terminal, Zeller payment card, Zeller Mastercard and account application details which, the company says, enables an account to be operating in minutes.
Following the latest capital raise, Headline principal King Goh said: “Zeller’s remarkable growth over the past eight months is a testament to how they are reimagining the traditional business banking industry. Ben and the team have built strong core products and we are looking forward to working with them to grow and expand on this foundation.”
Pfisterer, Zeller’s chief executive, said 10,000 customers had joined Zeller in its first eight months of commercial operation. “We hear that they want a single financial services solution that brings together every product they need to run and grow their business,” he said.
Zeller plans to soon launch “omnichannel commerce capabilities” which will enable merchants to accept payments online with Zeller and use Zeller payments processing when selling products or sending invoices online.
Image: Using Zeller technology to accept payment.