Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)’s venture-scaling arm, x15ventures has signed an agreement to acquire Waddle, a cloud-based invoice lending platform.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquisition is aimed at expediting the bank’s goal to offer Australian businesses with leading working capital solutions.
Through its Stream Working Capital product, CBA has an existing partnership with Waddle. The product enables CBA’s business customers to access cash locked up in unpaid invoices with a digital cash flow solution connected to business accounting software such as Xero, QuickBooks, and MYOB.
According to CBA, the acquisition of Waddle will bring the technology in-house and allow the bank to fast-track the growth of its Stream Working Capital product.
Besides, it will continue to gain advantages from the automation and flexibility that the Waddle platform offers.
CBA business banking group executive Vacy-Lyle said: “We launched Stream Working Capital as a digital solution to use outstanding invoices as loan security, with the loan size reducing as invoices are paid. This digital end-to-end solution was a first for a major Australian bank.
“Through acquiring the Waddle platform, we can continue to provide the best integrated digital working capital solution in the market and support more of our customers with faster funding assessments and approvals.”
Founded in 2020, x15 is a venture scaler that builds, buys, and invests in startups that would benefit from connections to CBA.
The transaction is expected to be completed soon after satisfaction of customary conditions.
In June 2023, CBA announced new measures to target scams, which include declining or holding certain payments to cryptocurrency exchanges for 24 hours.