{"id":4333,"date":"2018-12-12T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymentfacilitator.com\/?p=4333"},"modified":"2021-06-15T17:43:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T17:43:00","slug":"there-still-seems-to-be-a-lot-to-do-investors-talk-valuation-and-the-future-of-the-pf-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/archive\/there-still-seems-to-be-a-lot-to-do-investors-talk-valuation-and-the-future-of-the-pf-market\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThere Still Seems to Be a Lot to Do\u201d: Investors Talk Valuation and the Future of the PF Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Disruption of existing markets, solid business fundamentals, and significant growth potential \u2013 these are among the factors inherent to the PF model that are turning investors\u2019 heads.<\/p>\n<p>As PaymentFacilitator has reported, interest in payment facilitation among the venture capital community is high. Investors recognize the potential inherent in this emerging space, where vertically oriented companies are leveraging payments to drive growth.<\/p>\n<p>A panel of investors at this fall\u2019s PF WORLD 2018 discussed what has attracted them to this intersection between software and payments and what they think payment facilitators \u2013 or SaaS companies thinking about integrating payments \u2013 should know.<\/p>\n<p>Moderator Todd Ablowitz, CEO and founder of Infinicept, asked the panelists what they are looking for in an investment and how companies that are combining software with payments are delivering.<\/p>\n<p>Vlad Besprozvany, vice president at Insight Venture Partners, said that his firm sees the potential for returns in markets that are \u201cnascent\u201d when it comes to incorporating electronic payments, where PFs are finally moving them away from checks and cash with a simplified and truly integrated payments experience.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dHtuCKQh2Sc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>According to Arjun Mehta, vice president at Bregal Sagemount, companies that are already leading their specific verticals with software solutions and therefore approach their customers from a position as a \u201ctrusted vendor\u201d have a unique advantage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think from that position, you actually have a great vantage point to sell payments,\u201d Mehta said. \u201cI think it\u2019s much more than just a price-based sale, I think it\u2019s much more about the platform and what you bring to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He went on to talk about how the vertical focus helps companies succeed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just think you have a natural structural edge when you\u2019re vertical focused,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can underwrite better. For example, if you know your customer inside out, you know that to an outsider, this might seem like a company that\u2019s had some struggles \u2013 but it\u2019s going through the J curve. You would be able to differentiate that, versus someone who\u2019s not vertical focused.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The panelists also talked about how SaaS companies should think about the relationship between payments and their valuations.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d-mg2zLfR-U\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Zach Sadek, partner at Parthenon Capital Partners, emphasized the need for solid business decisions behind adding payments to a product or service mix. He said that the decision to integrate payments should increase a software company\u2019s total addressable market and profitability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose are the reasons why going into payments makes sense,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not because it\u2019s magic; it\u2019s not because the valuations change. It\u2019s because it makes it a better business from a fundamentals standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe advice I always have for people, and it sounds trite, is, \u2018good business decisions lead to good valuation decisions, and vice versa,\u2019\u201d Sadek said.<\/p>\n<p>Moderator Todd Ablowitz also asked the panelists how far they felt the industry is into the movement where software and payments are joining together. All agreed that, while much has already happened, the trend is still in early stages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn general, it just feels like there\u2019s still so much innovation,\u201d Besprozvany said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing so many companies come out with really creative ways of solving these problems and every time you kind of think back and think of some of the pains still associated with the payments side of how to do business, there still seems to be a lot to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LkTtEQhbIlk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Watch<\/em><em> for additional insights from around the payment facilitator ecosystem as we continue to share video from PF WORLD 2018 in future weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A panel of investors at this fall\u2019s PF WORLD 2018 discussed what has attracted them to this intersection between software and payments and what they think payment facilitators \u2013 or SaaS companies thinking about integrating payments \u2013 should know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[117,404,408,620,684,877],"class_list":["post-4333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-bregal-sagemount","tag-infinicept","tag-insight-venture-partners","tag-parthenon-capital-partners","tag-pf-world-2018","tag-the-payment-facilitator-model"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6972,"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions\/6972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}