Max Levchin's Affirm spins out independent B2B financing company Resolve
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Affirm, a financial services company led by former PayPal CTO Max Levchin, is spinning out a new independent company focused on B2B commerce. As a refresher, Affirm is pitched as a way to bring fair pricing to consumer credit, letting people pay for trips and other products over clearly mapped out installments. Affirm determines a person's creditworthiness via algorithms at the point of sale.
This new company, similarly named Resolve, takes Affirm's buy now, pay later approach and applies it to business purchasing.
Developed by Chris Tsai and Brian Nguyen within Levchin's San Francisco-based innovation lab HVF, Resolve is an automated payments platform offering extended net 30, 60 and 90-day payment terms for business buyers. Like Affirm, Resolve analyzes financing applications with nontraditional underwriting data to authorize extended payment windows. Resolve also assumes all repayment risk, and suppliers receive full payment, minus fees, as soon as an order is placed.
"Much of B2B e-commerce is still managed in archaic, outdated ways – the sector needs its tech moment in order to fully reach its potential," said Levchin. "Resolve's ability to power automated payment approvals and terms will help deliver on this promise of adoption and scale."
Alternative financing is a burgeoning segment in fintech, with companies ranging from Mastercard to Square investing in data-driven lending platforms that link seamlessly into a merchant's payment suite. The idea is that merchants -- and in Resolve's case, B2B suppliers -- can sell higher ticket items, increase order volume and boost overall sales via on-the-spot financing.