Inclusion through financing with Taulia
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What
Taulia is a platform offering working capital management and supply chain financing solutions. Founded in 2009, Taulia was acquired by German business software giant SAP earlier this year. Taulia had previously raised over $200 million from firms like Trinity Ventures, Questmark Partners, and Lakestar.
Why
To Danielle Weinblatt, Taulia’s Chief Product Officer, the company’s products—both current and upcoming—help address acute macroeconomic needs and help build a more inclusive economy.
Taulia has seen demand increase for its early payment and dynamic discounting solutions, and that need will only increase in the face of headwinds. “More and more companies are going to be stretched for liquidity and stretched for capital, so they're going to leverage the Taulia network,” Weinblatt said. “But they're going to want to do more.”
In early 2023, Taulia will launch an ESG panel within its interface that solves explicitly for companies’ ESG goals. Ninety percent of a company’s ESG footprint is attributable to its supply chain, Weinblatt explained. Chief Procurement Officers are looking to diversify their supplier base, mitigate supply chain disruption, negotiate favorable payment terms, and layer on ESG initiatives across these objectives. “Making sure that every single business that needs to access the capital markets and access liquidity at favorable rates can… create a virtuous economic cycle,” Weinblatt said.
How
Taulia’s ESG panel is the result of a comprehensive UX pipeline that begins with its sales verticals. The company’s network sales team spearheads suppliers’ onboarding experience and also conducts outreach, receiving feedback from hundreds of suppliers per week. While larger suppliers have executive relationships with Taulia, smaller suppliers also have their voices heard through annual customer discovery work conducted by Taulia’s product team.
The ESG panel provides ratings for a company’s supply chain, creating a tiered structure wherein certain suppliers can be offered reduced rates based on meeting specific ESG objectives. Women- and/or minority-owned companies can also receive favorable rate structures through products like Taulia’s dynamic discounting program, which enables the buyer to use cash to offer early payments to suppliers. Taulia is integrating with EcoVadis, which can create tiers within Taulia’s platform to match discounting to specific rate and ESG groups.
Beyond the panel, Taulia is looking to build out a robust roadmap to expand its global reach. It’s partnering with Standard Chartered Bank to establish a greater foothold in Asia, building out its product to comply with more jurisdictions, and integrating with other enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to let more suppliers take advantage of Taulia’s services.
