E-commerce startup Viably wants to dominate when it comes to supporting Amazon sellers by helping them fund their business from its headquarters in downtown Cary.
To do it, Viably, which offers financial solutions for online retailers, secured a $50 million debt financing facility this week from a firm called Viola Credit.
Viola Credit is a private credit fund based in Israel that has deployed more than $2 billion in capital to date. The company is no stranger to Viably CEO Doron Gordon, as its portfolio also included Cary IT software firm Samanage. Gordon founded Samanage and led it as CEO through its $329 million acquisition by SolarWinds in 2019.
Gordon said that when the founding team started Viably, it knew all along it would want to partner with people they had already done business with. About 80 percent of the 27 people working at Viably are Samanage veterans, a team that “has a tremendous amount of experience working together,” Gordon said.
“Obviously Samange had a pretty good outcome,” he said.
The debt facility is meant to help Viably customers fund their e-commerce businesses.
Today, the focus is Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) – but Gordon said the eventual plan is to expand to other markets such as Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) and Walmart (NYSE: WMT).
Viably supports all sellers on Amazon, but its newest offering targets wholesalers – the second largest selling strategy on the platform. Called Viably Wholesaler Accelerator, the product allows wholesalers to enhance their buying power through adjustable credit limits and a seamless repayment process.
And Viola Credit’s facility backs it up.
Viably raised $21 million last year from investors such as Salesforce Ventures to finance its technology, initially billed as a banking app for small businesses.
Viably is also backed by local investors such as Bull City Venture Partners and the Scot Wingo's Triangle Tweener Fund.
The firm is hiring – particularly in areas such as customer experience and sales.