Melio

Melio was founded in 2018 by Matan Bar, Ilan Atias, and Ziv Paz in Tel Aviv after Bar noticed a bizarre anomaly in the American financial system while working at PayPal. Despite the rise of digital consumers, over 80% of small business-to-business (B2B) payments in the United States were still being executed via physical paper checks sent through the mail. Small businesses were locked into this legacy routine because their vendors refused to accept credit cards due to processing fees, creating immense operational friction and cash flow bottlenecks for millions of mom-and-pop shops.

Melio executed a brilliant stealth growth strategy, raising capital in quick succession from top-tier venture capital firms like Tiger Global and Coatue. In September 2021, the company raised a massive $250 million round, vaulting its private valuation to $4 billion just three years after its initial launch. The absolute secret to Melio's growth was avoiding direct marketing to small businesses; instead, they signed massive embedded "white-label" software partnerships with giant tech platforms like Shopify, Capital One, and QuickBooks, powering their underlying B2B bill pay buttons.

As macroeconomic conditions tightened in 2023 and 2024, Melio's core value proposition became even more critical for cash-strapped small businesses. The platform allowed business owners to pay any vendor using a corporate credit card, even if the vendor only accepted paper checks or bank transfers. Melio charged a 2.9% fee to the sender, advanced the cash instantly, and mailed a physical check to the vendor behind the scenes. This transactional credit card interchange split became a massive revenue engine as businesses scrambled to delay cash outflows during high-interest cycles.

By mid-2026, Melio processed over $55 billion in annualized transaction volume across its white-label B2B rails, comfortably establishing itself as the invisible plumbing behind modern small business finance. Under CEO Matan Bar, the company expanded heavily into international cross-border B2B processing, allowing US supply chains to instantly pay manufacturing vendors across Europe and Asia with automated compliance checks. Operating with substantial capital reserves, Melio positioned itself for a high-profile IPO as net transaction revenues topped $210 million.