Nook reinvents B2B payments and raises a $1.1m pre-seed round to transform an outdated industry 

• Nook transforms B2B payments by replacing slow, outdated PDF invoices with the first shared invoice that sits between supplier and buyer, connecting their accounting ledgers 
• Cloud accounting adoption among SMEs has been rapid, but the processes around it remain stuck in the past. Nook leverages their open APIs to effortlessly sync trade documents between supplier and buyer 
• Round led by Speedinvest and TriplePoint, with participation from Ascension, Notion, and fintech angels 

27 October 2021, London, UK 

London- and Lisbon-based startup Nook has raised a $1.1m pre-seed round to simplify payment for customers and help suppliers get paid faster. 

Nook has created the first trade collaboration platform that overhauls the established, outdated world of B2B payments, which rely on PDF invoices, emails, and manual data entry into bookkeeping systems. Today businesses suffer considerable operating costs, errors and fraud just to do business with their suppliers and customers. While B2C payments have evolved rapidly over the past 30 years solving the pains and security issues that they initially faced. B2B payment has stubbornly remained underpinned by PDF documents and email. 

Instead, Nook’s platform integrates seamlessly with a business’ existing accounting software and bank accounts. It automatically extracts invoices and provides integrated approval and payment. Nook also supports extracting invoice data from PDFs, but businesses experience the full benefits when they share invoices and orders directly over Nook. This helps drive faster payment, debt chasing, and enforcement of payment terms. Today Xero, Quickbooks, and Sage customers can take advantage of Nook’s simplified invoice workflow, saving hours of manual data entry. 

Co-founders Joe Lines and Henry Arnold began building Nook at the start of 2021, inspired by invoice fraud Henry witnessed at a business he had been consulting for. “This got us thinking deeply about how invoice fraud happens to businesses,” says Joe. “We realised that the majority of B2B payments rely on a PDF invoice and email, which is insecure and costly. Our vision is to create a trade network that ultimately replaces the need for businesses to exchange PDF documents.

Nook is beginning by addressing the UK market. “Today, over 50% of UK SMEs have already adopted cloud accounting solutions. It’s time that we have a secure and effortless approach for those solutions to talk to each other,” says Lines. 

The pre-seed round was led by Speedinvest and TriplePoint, with participation from Ascension, Notion, and angels including fintech founders, Michael Kent (founder of Azimo), Charlie Delingpole (founder of ComplyAdvantage and Market Invoice), and Emre Baran (founder of Qubit and Cerbos). 

Nook will use the new funds to expand its product and engineering team, continue to evolve the product, and begin sales and marketing activity with SMEs and accountants. 

“Business payments haven’t kept pace with the way the world works today, making them needlessly cumbersome and time-consuming,” says Olga Shikhantsova, Principal with the Speedinvest Fintech investment team. “The team at Nook have created an elegant solution to the problem, and we’re looking forward to supporting them as they bring it into the world.” 

“Nook’s vision for a trade network is a compelling reinvention of the day-to-day reality that businesses face when it comes to one of their most fundamental functions: generating revenue,” says Daniel Cardenas-Clark, Investment Director at TriplePoint. “We’re excited to help Joe and Henry make that vision the new normal for B2B payments.” 

About Nook:

Founded in 2021, Nook is on a mission to simplify how businesses trade together. Our trade collaboration platform enables businesses to seamlessly exchange accounting data, enforce contracts and make payments. Nook is a London and Lisbon-based startup backed by top-tier VCs and Angel investors. The company has raised $1m in pre-seed funding to date. To join our waitlist and get early access to the platform please visit www.nook.io 

About Speedinvest:

Speedinvest is a leading early-stage venture capital firm with more than €500M AuM and 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, Vienna and San Francisco. Our dedicated sector focused teams are the first to fund Europe’s most innovative technology startups and our in-house operational experts are on-hand to offer founders ongoing support with growth, HR, US market expansion, and more. Wefox, Bitpanda, TIER Mobility, GoStudent, Curve, CoachHub, Schüttflix, TourRadar, Adverity, and Twaice are among our portfolio of 200+ companies. Learn more at www.speedinvest.com. 

About TriplePoint:

Triple Point has been investing in early stage businesses for over 15 years and manages over £2.5bn of assets. Our team of 150 investment professionals has invested over £600m into early stage UK businesses, including; LendInvest, Capital On Tap, Ably, Vyne, Contis, Credit Kudos and Quit Genius. Find out more at www.triplepoint.vc