Citi Ventures and PNC have made a strategic investment in HighRadius, a leader in B2B payments and receivables software. Both backers share its goal. That goal is to rethink how businesses pay each other.
The problem is still large. About 50 percent of B2B payments are still made with paper checks. As a result, banks and companies need better ways to manage receivables. At the same time, they have to prepare for changes in payment and remittance processes around the world. HighRadius has spent 11 years solving these issues for some of the world’s largest companies.
The company sits where several fintech trends meet: near real-time payments, artificial intelligence and cloud delivery. Its software, in fact, combines all three. As a result, silos in payment processing disappear, and tasks that once needed experienced staff and complex IT projects are handled automatically.
More than 25 percent of the Fortune 1000 use HighRadius technology. Clients include adidas, Cargill, Danone, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Sysco, Warner Bros. and Zurich.
What the investors and the founder said
Luis Valdich, managing director of venture investing at Citi Ventures, said payments are becoming more digital, fragmented and complex at a fast pace. He described the HighRadius platform as purpose-built to modernize accounts receivable for large enterprises. Citi Ventures, he added, looks forward to working with HighRadius to rebuild receivables with AI and automation.
Christopher Ward, executive vice president and head of product management at PNC Treasury Management, noted his unit’s long record of speeding up incoming payments. It has done so through lockbox, electronic billing and collection services. With HighRadius, he said, PNC can automate cash application across every payment and remittance format. That lets clients reach straight-through processing and capture clean data without manual work.
Sashi Narahari, HighRadius founder and CEO, asked why receivables cannot run on their own when cars can already drive themselves. Forward-looking companies, he argued, should adopt new technology rather than chase the cheapest labor in distant outsourcing centers. The platform handles more than $500 billion in receivables a year. Its intelligent bots make existing staff more efficient, while labor-heavy tasks such as cash application are fully automated.
About the companies
Citi Ventures is headquartered in Silicon Valley, with offices in San Francisco, New York, London and Tel Aviv. It explores, incubates and invests in new ideas together with Citi teams, clients and partners. Its five focus areas are financial services and technology, commerce and payments, data analytics and machine intelligence, security and enterprise IT, and marketing and customer experience.
The PNC Financial Services Group is one of the largest diversified financial services firms in the U.S. It offers retail and business banking and lending. It also provides corporate banking, real estate finance, asset-based lending, and wealth and asset management.
HighRadius is a fintech software-as-a-service company. Its Integrated Receivables platform automates credit, collections, cash application, deductions, e-billing and payment processing. It runs on the Rivana AI engine and the Freda virtual assistant, while the radiusOne B2B payment network links suppliers digitally with buyers. According to the company, clients cut days sales outstanding and bad debt, and they often see strong returns within a few months.
