Citi Ventures led a $28 million Series C equity round for client management platform HoneyBook, the company announced today.
The San Francisco-based fintech startup also announced it has surpassed $1 billion in bookings through its platform, which enables small businesses and freelancers to streamline processes from capturing leads and delivering proposals to sending invoices and accepting payments.
Oz Alon, co-founder and CEO of HoneyBook, told Bank Innovation that the company’s clients transact more than 80% of their business through online payments.
“If you look today at any other company that offers online payments, from PayPal through Square, and Intuit, I don’t think they’re reporting more than 30% online transactions from businesses,” he said. “Businesses that use HoneyBook transact most of their business in online payments. That is unheard of.”
HoneyBook’s customer base grew 150% last year, and members created more than 1 million projects on the platform. The company has also enhanced its offering of client management tools, recently adding several new features and launching an Android mobile app.
Alon said the company focuses on solving pain points around client communications, contracts, invoicing and payments. He said partnering with Citi will allow the company to address a broader set of customer needs and build new financial products timely and efficiently.
As it is, HoneyBook’s customer base grew 150% last year, and members created more than 1 million projects on the platform. The company has also enhanced its offering of client management tools, adding several new features recently and launching an Android mobile app.
On working with a big bank, Alon said he was pleasantly surprised.
“We were not quite sure what to expect when we started a dialogue with a big firm like Citi Bank, and we actually thought they would not move as fast as us,” he said. “What we found was exactly the opposite because we found a lot of openness on the other side, and desire to partner with startups like us.”
More so, Alon said, the bank shared the startup’s vision of using data and access to provide the appropriate financial products to smooth out cash flows and manage day-to-day business.
“We were ready to pitch them and we didn’t even need to pitch,” he said. “We were completing each other’s sentences.”
From a process perspective, Alon said he expected a partnership would have taken 6-12 months to work out but that, in reality, it was almost instant. “We came to an agreement pretty fast,” he said.
Also see: Citi Venture Investing Head: ‘Financial Services is Becoming More Like Tech’
“As the shift toward independent work continues to rise, the needs of this modern workforce segment are evolving,” said Luis Valdich, Managing Director and Venture Investing Lead at Citi Ventures, in a statement. “HoneyBook’s holistic platform is uniquely positioned to serve the growing number of creative freelancers who are operating their own businesses and we are excited to be part of its journey.”
The latest round more than doubles HoneyBook’s previous funding amounts. All of the company’s existing investors, including Norwest Venture Partners, Aleph, Vintage Investment Partners and Hillsven Capital, also participated in the round.






