Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and actor Ashton Kutcher make for an unlikely investing duo. But the VC arms of the two men have joined with Spark Capital Growth, Entree Capital, Khosla Ventures and others to invest $50 million in Fundbox, a San Francisco-based company that helps startups overcome cash flow gaps.
Bezos invested through his Bezos Expeditions arm, while Kutcher invested through his newly-formed VC fund Sound Ventures.
The company wrote in a blog post that it is solving “one of the most significant problems faced by 29 million small businesses nationwide.” Essentially, Fundbox provides mini loans to businesses, covering the amount of outstanding invoices.
“To date, tens of thousands of small businesses have connected to the Fundbox platform to manage their cash flow with simple, one-click financing of outstanding invoices,” the company wrote. “We’ve just completed our 7th quarter of 2x quarter-over-quarter growth, and we recently surpassed a big milestone when we underwrote our 15 millionth invoice.”
The company says that the clearing fee on $1,000 of invoices would range between $52 and $72 for three months, and that customers have 12 weeks to pay back the loans.
Total funding in Fundbox now stands at $108 million, according to TechCrunch.
