Our Investment in Float
Susa Ventures is excited to announce our investment in Float, a Toronto-based startup building corporate card and spend management solutions.
We co-led the round alongside Golden Ventures with participation from Tiny Capital (Andrew Wilkinson) and Garage Capital.
We’re thrilled to welcome Griffin, Rob, Ruslan, and the rest of the Float team to the Susa Family!
Background and Industry Context
Susa has a long track record in fintech. In 2013, we invested in Robinhood’s seed round as the third investment in Susa Ventures I.
In the years that followed, we developed a strong thesis on where the future of financial technology was going.
Although we missed a number of great companies, including a failed attempt to invest in the seed of Plaid, we’ve built a portfolio of 20+ leading fintech startups, including Newfront Insurance, Fast, Human Interest, and many more.
In that time, innovation in fintech has accelerated. There are now more than 100 private fintech unicorns globally.
However, we believe that consumer-facing, and infrastructure-focused fintech has led the way. Meanwhile, businesses have been left behind.
Companies of all sizes are starting to look to new tools to get better visibility and control of their finances, while being able to access equity and debt markets in more efficient and transparent ways.
In the US, Brex and Ramp have built industry leading B2B expense management products which are being adopted by new startups and legacy businesses alike.
However in Canada, the opportunity is wide open for a company to not only build a better corporate card and spend management platform, but to become the leader in the broader B2B payments market.
Just as WealthSimple has become the dominant B2C fintech in Canada, Susa believes Float will become the dominant B2B fintech in that market.
Float’s Vision and Team
I met Float CEO, Rob Khazzam, about three years ago at a social event in San Francisco. At the time, he was working at Uber with a childhood friend of mine, and now Susa-backed CEO of Cottage, Alex Czarnecki.
Rob was at Uber for 5 years where he led international expansion in Eastern Europe as part of Uber’s ‘launch team’ from 2014–2015 and was the regional general manager for Central & Eastern Europe from 2015–2017.
During that period, he oversaw growth in the region from one employee and one city to over 10 countries, 40 cities, over 100 staff, and >$500M of gross revenue.
Rob later led Uber’s Canadian ridesharing business as GM from 2017 to late 2019. During his time at Uber, he experienced the challenges related to card payments, expense reports, and financial management firsthand while living on the road.
As I got to know him, and learned of his operating track record at Uber, it became clear to me he would be an incredible entrepreneur and founder.
Float’s Mission
98% of companies in Canada are SMBs. As a category, they’ve been widely underserved by banks and software companies.
While the vast majority of them prefer to pay by card (~70%), accessing corporate cards is really hard.
Approvals can take up to four weeks, monthly limits are too low, owners have to put up high personal guarantees, and the software to run these programs is virtually non-existent.
Float has a clear goal to help close this gap. Every company should have access to better financial products to help grow their business, and Float will be there every step of the way
Conclusion
As Float progresses, we are excited to support their journey and watch them grow into a cornerstone of financial technology for businesses, promising a new era of efficiency and control for SMBs nationwide.
You can read the rest of “Why we invested in” collection here:
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