Today we announced the close of our $17 million in series C funding from Bain Capital. Obviously this is an enormously significant event, for The Receivables Exchange. I would posit that it is also a tremendous announcement for America and the world of working capital finance. The number of companies for which the Exchange was designed, small and medium B2B companies, is over 4 million strong. So suffice it to say, you are going to be hearing a lot more about the Exchange over the next couple of years. And, with this investment, we are going to be helping millions more small and midsize companies improve their business.

Due to our launch in the midst of the credit crisis, people often wonder whether the genesis of the Exchange resulted from the advent of the Credit Crisis. Not at all. The idea for this company came to me many years ago when I was trying to figure out how small businesses could have access to capital in the same way that large companies have access to NYSE and NASDAQ and the commercial paper market. What SMBs needed , I decided, was their own version of the commercial paper market. In April 2007, we formed The Receivables Exchange. In November 2008, we launched the world's first online marketplace for trading accounts receivable.

What the credit crisis did was make more visible cracks in the overall system that resulted in the crisis. The mechanisms for procuring working capital simply had not kept up with the pace of innovation in the broader economy, and more specifically, the speed of business and the velocity of money. In today's business world the second most valuable commodity is time - after cash. Just think about how many tools you use to free up more time so that you can do more business. Email is the obvious one. But there are many others. Do you use e-invoicing? Do you pay your bills online? Do you use a PDA? Do you book travel online? If you are like most business people I know, you probably do multiple meetings via cell phone, between driving to meetings. Again, time, as commodity. That is what The Receivables Exchange is about, synchronizing 21st Century American business with a 21st Century mechanism for procuring working capital through innovation.

The result: fast and flexible access to working capital when you need it at a speed that keeps up with the speed of your business. As you have read here before, receivable auctions often get funded within 5 to 10 minutes from going live.

If there is one thing that this investment confirms it is that a new era for small and medium business finance has arrived. To that end, you have our firm commitment to continue to innovate and strive to make accessing working capital for your business easier and faster, and at the best price that a transparent, competitive marketplace can generate.

• View a short video overview of The Receivables Exchange
  

Nic Perkin is Co-founder and President of The Receivables Exchange, an accounts receivable financing tool. The Exchange is the world's first online marketplace for real-time trading of accounts receivable. Find out how to trade accounts receivable.