PlusAdvance, the fintech owner of the cloud technological platform of the same name which includes all the services for supply chain finance, and which recently renewed its partnership with Lago, a company active in the furniture design sector (see the press release here), is preparing to face a 2024 full of commercial agreements aimed at further increasing the volume of invoices managed, which last year already reached a record level of 2.5 billion euros (plus 165%).
To reveal it to BeBeez is the Fouder & CEO Massimiliano Gattari, who holds 21.94% of the capital through Fimax srl and who firmly controls the company together with the other co-foundersEros Cecconi and Giuseppe Galimberti, owners with 50% each of HA srl, which owns 44.76% by PlusAdvance. The remaining shares are divided between friends and family, some of whom are shielded by Simon Fiduciaria (Ersel), which owns 15.05%.
PlusAdvance opened 10% of the capital last year through a "Friends and Family" increase with reserved premium, supported for corporate and tax aspects by Siniscalco & Partners, to support its commercial development. As for institutional investors, Gattari continues, there is no urgency: “We haven't done any investment rounds yet. 2024 will be the testing ground, because it is the first year in which the platform will be fully operational with all products. Towards the end of the year, if everything goes according to forecast, we will take this possibility into consideration."
The platform, which is based on operational research algorithms created by Gattari, presents itself as an open and independent interface between the three players in supply chain finance, whose objective is to optimize the financing of companies' working capital and to manage liquidity at its best: client companies, their suppliers and financial partners, such as banks and factors. The company's core business so far has been dynamic discounting, with which the lead customer pays the supplier in advance in exchange for a discount. But now the operational horizon is 360 degrees.
PlusAdvance was born in 2017, when supply chain finance did not exist, and became operational in 2019. Today it serves 3,500 customers. The market was previously limited to invoice advances and factoring. Now, with the introduction of innovative systems, it has become modern as a process, because the platform brings it to the highest possible levels of efficiency. Our platform reads the list of invoices approved for payment by client companies in a totally automatic way every day and the algorithms instantly optimize collection times for suppliers and payment times for customers. For example, if a company has liquidity to invest and wants to make it available to pay suppliers more quickly, the algorithms create personalized proposals to present to suppliers, who will freely choose whether to accept or not
The agreement with Lago goes in this direction, which will continue the "Sprint Payments" project, which last year saw the participation of over 50% of the company's suppliers. This project allows suppliers, again on a voluntary basis and depending on their cash needs, to manage deadlines flexibly without having to turn to traditional banking or financial channels.
Among PlusAdvance customers appear Pam Panorama, Unicoop Tirreno, Coal, Dimar, Riso Gallo, Generali and the Bolognese AirPlus (Gruppo Lufthansa), which offers corporate payment solutions. “We started with large-scale distribution, because it is one of those that best lends itself to optimizing its cash cycles,” he observes the CEO.
We are the only ones to also provide multi-bank confirming, in which the institutions provide the requested liquidity, or the commercial credit card. In fact, many suppliers do not accept credit card payments. Thanks to an agreement signed last May with MasterCard, we convert the credit card payment into a bank transfer. By paying by card, the supplier collects immediately and the client company has an extension on the reimbursement time until the next monthly statement
The agreement with Lago goes in this direction, which will continue the "Sprint Payments" project, which last year saw the participation of over 50% of the company's suppliers. This project allows suppliers, again on a voluntary basis and depending on their cash needs, to manage deadlines flexibly without having to turn to traditional banking or financial channels.
PlusAdvance's customers include Pam Panorama, Unicoop Tirreno, Coal, Dimar, Riso Gallo, Generali and the bolognese AirPlus (Gruppo Lufthansa), which offers corporate payment solutions.
“We started with large-scale retail trade because it is one of those that best lends itself to optimizing its cash cycles,” observes the CEO.
As regards confirming, however, we have had agreements in place since last June with the BPER Banca Group and with Banca Sella. Let's take the case of a company that does not have liquidity to invest or wishes to extend payment times and wants to offer suppliers the possibility of disinvesting receivables quickly and at a competitive price. In this case, our algorithms check the banks' willingness to finance these operations and automatically present the proposal to the suppliers
PlusAdvance is an orchestration layer, a technological facilitator, an open and independent ecosystem that acts according to a super partes logic, regardless of any company software used and allowing the maximum possible customization, since each company can work with the banks it prefers. We are the armed wing of the CFOs, who only have to decide who does what, when and how much, because we offer objective service management
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