Parker

This is by FAR the biggest obstacle to growing a profitable, cash-flowing ecom business: Paying for inventory and ads before you sell. Ecom is tricky because you have to put up lots of capital up front. The process goes like this: 1. Order inventory 2. Create ads 3. Pay for both 4. Keep paying for ads 5. Finally see the revenue By the time you make a sale, you need more inventory and ads just to keep the machine running. Most people accept that this is just how it is. They think credit cards like Amex or Cap One give you a 30-day cushion and that's that. This is false. Yes, expenses on day 1 of your billing cycle get you a full 30 days. But expenses on day 30? You get 1 day. The average "grace period" for most cards works out to about 15 days. Not nearly enough for e-commerce cash cycles. Now what if you could extend your billing cycle to 45 day? Or 60 days? Even 90 days? The impact on your cash flow could transform your business overnight. Parker is an ecom-specific card that gives you: • Limits based on performance, not your credit score • Every transaction gets its own payback period • Up to 90 days to pay back each purchase The result? You can bridge the gap between spending and sales to scale your ad spend, order more inventory, and grow faster. P.S. GymShark is the classic case study on how to extend payment terms to create a negative cash conversion cycle. Link in the comments below.

Big news! We're thrilled to announce our $20M Series B funding led by Valar Ventures LLC! 🎉 Since our Series A in 2023, we've seen incredible growth and impact across the e-commerce ecosystem: • Processed over $1B in payments • Partnered with hundreds of leading DTC brands • Built a suite of financial tools tailored for e-commerce The best is yet to come! Read the full announcement here: https://lnkd.in/esUCYuvh

Fintech startup Parker has closed a $20 million Series B round, led by Valar Ventures LLC with support from Y Combinator. Parker, co-founded by Milan Ray and Yacine Sibous, offers banking, corporate credit cards, and financial analytics to e-commerce companies. The new funding will support engineering efforts and growth of their corporate credit card offering. Alexandra York and Zoya Hasan | Forbes https://lnkd.in/gCDQ9rv3 #Fintech #FintechNews

Parker's rolling credit terms can transform your ecom business's cash flow overnight. But it's a hard concept to explain... Here's how I would explain it to an 8-year-old: 1. Imagine you run an online store Every year, you need to stock up on products and spend money on ads for the biggest sale of the year — Black Friday. 2. Regular credit cards are okay With a regular credit card, if you spend a lot of money on November 26th (Black Friday), you'd have to pay it all back by December 1st. That's only a few days later! This is really tough because you've just spent all this money on products and ads, but you haven't had time to receive payments from your customers yet. 3. Parker's card smooths out repayment If you spend money on November 26th for Black Friday, payment is due 45 days later, not the standard 30. This gives you plenty of time to sell your products during the holiday season and collect payments from customers before you have to pay your credit card bill. 4. It works like this every day This 45-day period applies to everything you buy, every single day. If you spend more on November 27th, you don't have to pay for that until January 11th, and so on. --- What this means for e-commerce brands Rolling terms help you keep more money in your bank account. This extra cash flow lets you buy more inventory and run more ads, helping your business grow bigger and faster. Does that make sense?

From Kickstarter to $75K monthly ad spend: How Bala Bangles scaled with Parker We love seeing brands grow. But growth often comes with growing pains. Just ask Bala Bangles. After a Shark Tank appearance and pandemic-fueled demand spike, Bala's revenue grew 8X year-over-year. Amazing, right? But there was a catch. Traditional credit cards couldn't keep up with their needs: • "Unlimited" cards shut off at six figures • Campaigns got disrupted by unpredictable limits • Cash flow struggled to match inventory needs With Parker, Bala found a financial partner that could scale with them: • Higher, performance-based credit limits • Flexible repayment terms up to 90 days • Consolidated $75K monthly ad spend onto one platform The result? More than just better financing. "[Parker] has allowed us to reallocate costs so that we have the cash necessary to purchase inventory rather than doing so on credit," says Max Kislevitz, Bala's co-founder. We're proud to give fast-growing brands like Bala the confidence to keep innovating. Want the full story? Check out our case study: https://lnkd.in/gdAtpr3F #ecommerce #startupgrowth #financinggrowth #dtc

Black Friday exposed a major flaw in how credit cards work for e-commerce businesses. Let me break it down with a common scenario: If you're like most DTC brands, you go hard on BFCM ad spend, potentially dropping more in one day than you have all year. Your BFCM sales break new records. Then December 1st rolls around. And that massive bill is due. At this point, you haven't even seen a dime of profit from those Black Friday sales yet. If you're using PayPal, Affirm, or selling on Amazon, you're waiting 2+ weeks for that money. But your credit card doesn't care. They want their cash now. This situation creates a brutal cash flow pattern: You're cruising along, making money steadily. Then all of the sudden, it's end of month and your bank account empties. Rinse and repeat every 30 days. Most founders just accept that this is how the system works. But it's not real credit—it's just delaying payment by a few days. So, what's the alternative? We built Parker to solve this exact problem: - Spend on Nov 26th? Due on Dec 26th. - Spend on Nov 27th? Due on Dec 27th. - Spend on Nov 28th? Due on Dec 29th. Every transaction gets 30, 60, or even 90 days, based on when you'll actually see those profits. This smooths out your cash flow. No more monthly cliffs. Your balance stays steady, and will trend as you grow. Here's how hundreds of Parker customers will use our product to optimize cash flow this Black Friday: 1. Take your credit limit. Divide it by 30. Spend that amount daily on ads. 2. When day 30 hits, pay back what you spent 30 days ago. Then immediately spend that amount again on ads. 3. Now you're consistently holding your full credit limit as a balance. With a $100k limit, that's an extra $100k you can use to buy inventory. In Summary: Just like that, you've just optimized your cash cycle on both ad spend AND inventory. It's like you're drop shipping, but for your whole business. I know, it sounds wild. But this is how you turn your credit card into a true growth tool, not just a payment method.

How Voli Wellness transformed their business with Parker Analytics Problem: Voli Wellness was drowning in spreadsheets and couldn't get a clear picture of their company's health?  Their founder was juggling multiple platforms just to piece together basic financial insights. Solution: Voli used Parker analytics to make sense of the data and use it to unlock growth opportunities. Here's how: 1. Uncovered a 60% revenue loss from Amazon payment failures 2. Streamlined investor updates with real-time data 3. Guided ad spend decisions for sustainable growth 4. Provided daily insights into contribution margin 5. Revealed true customer acquisition costs "Parker's analytics platform is now the first place I go every day to check my company's health. It enables me to ask the right questions and make data-driven choices for sustainable growth," says Voli's founder. Curious how Parker can help you make sense of the madness? Read the full case study — link in the comments.

From Kitchen Experiments to $20M in Revenue Sylwia Tabor and Mark Ritz built Carnivore Snax to solve a simple problem: Convenient, tasty snacks for the carnivore diet. Their perseverance paid off: • $200K raised on Kickstarter • $1M in online sales within 7 months • Shoutout from Joe Rogan But rapid growth brings challenges. Carnivore Snax faced a crucial decision: Stay small or invest heavily in manufacturing. They chose to scale big. Parker's 45-day rolling terms freed up the working capital they needed to invest in new equipment without straining cash reserves. The result? Carnivore Snax doubled monthly revenue from $475K to $850K in just 6 months. Their story shows what's possible when you combine a great product with smart financial decisions. Read the full case study on our website. Link in the comments. #ecommerce #dtc #entrepreneurship #cashflow

In 2021, Martin Mrozowski pioneered a new form of event marketing for e-commerce SaaS that helped Parker grow from 0 to 100s of paying customers in < 2 years: 1. Target high-value prospects We focused on established, 8-9 figure brand owners (i.e. profitable, strong growth trajectory, PMF) who needed access to capital to scale to the next level. 2. Create exclusive experiences Instead of typical sales pitches and happy hours, we hosted exclusive dinners and events that people actually enjoyed. Think $4,000 group dinners at Carbone in NYC for 20 hand-picked ecom founders. 3. Leverage influencer amplification Back then, we partnered with industry voices like Ronak Shah from Obvi and Adam Robinson from Retention/RB2B. When they raved about Parker on Twitter, quality leads poured in. 4. Do the math $100 per lead to attend + $400-500 cap per event. With a $24,000 year LTV product, the ROI was insane. Half the room converting? That's a goldmine. 5. Be first, be different While others spent hundreds of thousands on ads, we created experiences our target customers wanted to be a part of. It wasn't just about selling, it was about tapping into their desired lifestyle and giving them a taste. The results? Hundreds of customers closed. LTV in the millions. This playbook worked like crazy while it lasted, but we shared it a little too freely... Competitors copied it and our CAC skyrocketed. But that's all part of the game. Lesson I learned: Your growth strategies are as valuable as your product. Guard them fiercely and milk them for as long as you can.

Ever wonder what makes an e-commerce business "fundable"? Our underwriting team has distilled it down to 4 key factors: 1. Unit economics 2. Working capital 3. Liquidity 4. Debt management We've just published an in-depth article explaining: • Why these factors matter to lenders • How to calculate and interpret key metrics • Real-world examples of strong vs. weak financial profiles Whether you're seeking credit now or planning to in the future, understanding these elements is crucial for sustainable growth. Read the full breakdown via the link in the comments. #ecommerce #funding #growth