Chalk another one up for Grand Rapids’ New Community Transformation Fund.
The $25M venture capital fund that recently gave a $500,000 shot in the arm to BAMF Health has lured a new fintech company to the area: Z il Money Corp., a business-to-business payment solutions company with more than 460,000 customers.
“Already, the company has serviced thousands of customers and has processed over $30 billion in volume, so we’re excited to see the company continue to innovate and expand its financial software to small and medium-sized businesses,” said Ollie Howie, managing director, NCTF.
One of NCTF’s key goals is to attract companies owned or operated by business leaders of color. A caveat of the deal calls for Zil Money, which currently has offices in San Jose, California, and Kerala, India, to move its headquarters to Grand Rapids.
“Zil Money will do very well in Grand Rapids with our region’s fast-growing IT sector,” said Birgit Klohs, board chair of NCTF and one of the group’s founders who recently retired from The Right Place, an economic development organization that has shepherded $4.7 billion in new investments in West Michigan since 1985.
The deal comes on the heels of The Right Place’s new Technology Taskforce that seeks to position Grand Rapids as a premier technology center in the Midwest.
“I am honored to have NCTF investing in our startup,” said Sabeer Nelli, Zil Money CEO. “I’m excited to plant our roots in Grand Rapids and continue disrupting the online payment platform industry with our unique offerings.”
Zil Money had its beginnings at Texas travel plaza chain Tyler Petroleum. It started as an in-house project to cut costs associated with writing checks. With more than 200 employees and $60 million in annual revenue at Tyler, the costs associated with financial transactions were adding up.
“We had so many vendors, which was expensive, and it required a massive commitment of time, so I started to think through how we could streamline things into one online platform,” said Nelli, also the founder and CEO of Tyler Petroleum.
The concept that began as a way to solve his own payment processing woes morphed into an online check writing software application for small and midsize enterprises. Nelli made it available to other businesses.
“Zil Money has something special with the online check writer dot com site,” said Howie, who became acquainted with Nelli’s vision and sourced the investment for NCTF.
Zil Money is the parent company of the online check-writing software that helps small businesses get away from having to order expensive pre-printed checks from third-party vendors. The concept grew from there into a software that allows users to automatically manage finances and track spending on a single platform that handles a variety of banking transactions like AHC payments, wire transfers and credit card payments.
“I saw a real need to establish a payment method which needs the least manual involvement to reconcile or manage,” Nelli said.
Nelli is an entrepreneur with a unique background. He began his career as a commercial airline pilot and worked in real estate before forming Tyler Petroleum. An official member of Forbes Business Council, he believes the best feedback comes from the most unhappy customer. Tyler Petroleum is No. 4,090 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America.
The exact amount of the financial commitment provided by NCFT was not disclosed per Zil Money’s request. According to a spokesperson for the fund, a typical investment is expected to range between $250,000 and $500,000.
NCTF is interested in financing more businesses in the areas of fintech, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, agribusiness, e-commerce and IT, Howie said.