JP Morgan Chase Funds Software Provider FreshBooks, Deepening Integrated Payments Investment

Merchant services giant JP Morgan Chase is again placing its bets on integrated payments, this time with a strategic investment in accounting software provider FreshBooks. 

This is just the latest in a series of such ventures for Chase, which acquired payment facilitator WePay in 2017. The company also acquired healthcare PF InstaMed earlier this year.

This investment follows two previous funding rounds for FreshBooks, the company said in a press release; it raised $30 million in July 2014 and $43 million in July 2017. And it builds on an existing relationship; WePay was already a partner for FreshBooks, enabling integrated payments for the platform’s users. 

“FreshBooks is one of the smartest, easiest-to-use software options for small businesses, and we’re thrilled we can support their growth with this investment,” Bill Clerico, Head of SMB Product for Chase Merchant Services and CEO of WePay, said in the release. 

“Since earlier this year, our 4 million Chase for Business customers have been able to sign up for FreshBooks through our small business marketplace and we’ve seen lots of demand. Helping software companies like FreshBooks grow by serving our small business customer base is a key differentiator for us in the fast-growing integrated payments market,” Clerico said.

When Chase announced its plans to acquire WePay, the company’s CSO Rich Aberman told PaymentFacilitator that Chase was “looking to where they think the market’s going to go, thinking about payments as a strategic play.” 

Part of that play, Aberman said, involved thinking about how businesses would be integrating more of their financial services through the software they’re using to manage other business functions.

“Our mission is to reshape the world to suit the needs of self-employed professionals and their teams,” Mike McDerment, CEO and co-founder at FreshBooks, said in the investment announcement. “We see a significant opportunity to combine the strength and scale of JPMorgan Chase’s banking and payments capabilities with FreshBooks’ expertise in software design to create mass adoption for small businesses and propel us closer to achieving that world.”