Nipendo Secures $8 Million in Funding Round Led by Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures

Investment Fuels Expansion to U.S. and Endorses New Innovator’s Breakthrough Trading Partner Network That Dramatically Cuts Business Costs

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nipendo, a pioneer of the first cloud-based, supplier trading solution, announced today that it has closed its Series B round of funding in the amount of $8 million. The funding round was led by Horizons Ventures, which manages the private venture investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing in the technology sector globally. Its other notable investments include Facebook, Spotify, and Siri. Previous investor Tel Aviv-based Magma Venture Partners also participated in the round. Nipendo will use the capital infusion to scale its business operations and expand to the U.S., a strategic move initiated by the opening of its new headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

“We are pleased to receive this investment and validation from Horizons Ventures. Along with our existing investor, Horizons Ventures clearly recognizes the tremendous market opportunity and value we deliver through Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud.”

In addition to securing this latest round of funding, Nipendo announced that Gilad Novik, Chief Technology Officer of Horizons Ventures, has joined the company’s board of directors. This appointment brings the board to five members, including Modi Rosen of Magma Venture Partners, Avner Schneur, founder and former CEO of Emptoris (acquired by IBM), and Nipendo’s two co-founders Eyal Rosenberg and Alon Rosenberg. The new funding and extended board positions the company for its next stage of growth focused on the enterprise business market in North America.

Gilad Novik of Horizons Ventures noted, “Nipendo has brought to market a truly disruptive solution with its social business network. Its rapid adoption by many world-class, industry-leading companies, endorses the value it is delivering. Nipendo has tremendous potential, and I look forward to being part of the board and working with Eyal and his team.”

“We are honored to have Gilad join our board and look forward to collaborating with him. His technology expertise, track record working with fast-growing tech companies, and strategic connections will help Nipendo continue its rapid pace of growth,” said Eyal Rosenberg, co-founder and CEO of Nipendo. “We are pleased to receive this investment and validation from Horizons Ventures. Along with our existing investor, Horizons Ventures clearly recognizes the tremendous market opportunity and value we deliver through Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud.”

Nipendo is pioneering a high-capacity, trading partner network that aims to remove supply chain bottlenecks caused by manual or aging processes as well as longstanding legacy systems that have traditionally relied on EDI protocols, value added networks or extranets; each of these approaches are time-consuming, costly and burdensome. Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud enables enterprises to effortlessly collaborate with trading partners and rapidly automate the entire PO-to-payment lifecycle – from order receipt to shipping/receiving, tracking through electronic invoices, ensuring 100% reconciliation and accuracy, all the way to payment. Once connected to Nipendo’s network, suppliers and trading partners can automatically communicate with all other members, eliminating the need for lengthy custom programming for every new supplier connection. Nipendo’s Supplier Cloud reduces costly errors and discrepancies in the PO-to-payment process, accelerating time to market, enhancing data quality, and helping enterprises achieve dramatically greater efficiency and profitability.

Nipendo has struck a chord with big business. Top market-leading companies and organizations have adopted Nipendo across key industries, including high tech, defense, healthcare, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, banking, and food and beverage. Nipendo’s platform is also used by numerous multinationals, including Pfizer, HP, Lilly, IBM, Office Depot and Teva.

Manual, paper-based processes cost businesses around the world millions of dollars each year in direct procurement costs. With the cost of doing business for both customers (buyers) and suppliers approximately 2% of the total purchasing volume, a business spending $1.5 billion in purchasing volume, for example, will incur approximately $30 million in overhead resulting from existing process and transaction inefficiencies. Nipendo’s groundbreaking trading partner network automates the entire lifecycle of the transaction from order to payment, eliminating manual, paper-centric processes, and saving companies up to 50% of these process costs.

“In addition to its unprecedented offering, Nipendo has a great team that brings tremendous dedication, execution and technical expertise to solve a longstanding, costly and major inefficiency in the business world,” said Modi Rosen of Magma Venture Partners. “We are continuously searching for high-caliber teams with the ability to take advantage of huge market opportunities. We are convinced that Nipendo has the right mix of qualities that we look for to become a dominant market leader and achieve tremendous success.”

About Horizons Ventures

Based in Hong Kong, Horizons Ventures manages the Internet and technology investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing globally, including investments in companies such as Skype, Facebook, Spotify, Siri, Waze, UMPay and SecondMarket.

About Magma Venture Partners

Magma Venture Partners is Israel's leading venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments in communication, semiconductors, Internet and media. The firm helps to build these companies to target global markets and create industry leading success stories. For more information, interested parties can visit www.magmavc.com.

About Nipendo

Nipendo provides enterprise-level organizations with a highly scalable, cloud-based, trading partner network that removes the barriers to widespread deployment of electronic procurement and invoicing. Unlike existing dated solutions that require heavy investment and lengthy custom programming for every new supplier connection, Nipendo offers a breakthrough, plug-and-play solution that enables rapid on-boarding of thousands of suppliers -- at a low entry cost. As a result, Nipendo enables businesses to significantly expand the reach of electronic procurement and payment processing across their supplier ecosystem, lowering the cost of doing business while dramatically increasing efficiency and profitability. For more information, interested parties can visit www.nipendo.com.