Business model of Tipalti

Customer Segments

Tipalti has a niche market business model, with a specialized customer segment. The company targets its offering at firms that make mass global payments to vendors; these include marketplaces, affiliate networks, advertising networks, and eCommerce businesses.

Value Proposition

Tipalti offers three primary value propositions: convenience, performance, and brand/status.

The company offers convenience by simplifying its clients’ operations. Its product is an end-to-end solution that automates the entire accounts payable process (over 26,000 rules). This means it handles every activity ranging from tax compliance to electronic invoice capture to global payment remittance to payment reconciliation and reporting. The solution also provides a self-service portal for clients’ vendors, passing off time-consuming work such as data collection to the providers.

The company has demonstrated strong performance through tangible results. It claims that its solution can eliminate as much as 80% of its customers’ mass payment workload. High-profile examples of positive outcomes for specific clients include the following:

• Touch of Modern used Tipalti’s solution to decrease payment processing time from 48 minutes to 30 seconds, saving 4,000 hours annually and growing sales from $6 million to $90 million
• Infolinks used Tipalti’s solution to achieve full Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) compliance and reduce first-time payment failure to almost zero, increasing publisher satisfaction rates
• Inneractive used Tipalti’s solution to support five payment methods for developers around the world and reduce the amount of time spent on paying them by 50%
• Boost Media used Tipalti’s solution to save 5 – 10 hours per week in payment processing time and expand payment method options for its creative network from two to seven

The company has established a strong brand as a result of its success. It serves more than 750,000 payees and processes more than $2 billion in payments annually. Its hundreds of clients include prominent names such as GoPro, Go Daddy, Eventbrite, Disqus, and Twitter, and it has a customer retention rate of 99%. Lastly, it was a finalist for the 2015 Red Herring Top 100 Europe Award.

Channels

Tipalti’s main channels are its direct sales team and its website; it claims that over 50% of its business comes through inbound channels. The company promotes its offering through its social media pages.

Customer Relationships

Tipalti’s customer relationship is primarily of a self-service, automated nature. Customers utilize the service through the main platform while having limited interaction with employees.

The company’s website features a “Downloads” section with self-help resources including white papers, research reports, case studies, and webinars.

The site also provides a cost-per-invoice calculator, a payment error cost calculator, access to an e-mail newsletter, and answers to frequently asked questions. That said, there is a personal assistance component in the form of phone and e-mail support.

Key Activities

Tipalti’s business model entails maintaining and updating its cloud-based platform for customers.

Key Partners

Tipalti integrates its solution into the offerings of various service providers in order to ensure its system works efficiently for customers and streamline the payment reconciliation process. Integration partners fall into the following categories:

• Certified ERP/Accounting Systems –Tipalti can feed payment status data back into these systems and in some situations approve and execute payments from within the systems. Specific providers of the systems include NetSuite, Oracle, and Xero.
• Performance Management Systems – These include firms with systems utilized in digital advertising media to provide and maintain transparent accounting with creators, publishers, and affiliates. Specific partners are Cake, HasOffers, HitPath, and Paladin Software.

Key Resources

Tipalti’s main resource is its proprietary software platform, which serves over 750,000 payees.

It depends on engineering employees to maintain and update the platform, its sales personnel to promote it, and its customer service staff to provide support.

Lastly, as a relatively new startup it has relied on funding from outside parties, raising $13 million from two investors as of August 2015.

Cost Structure

Tipalti has a cost-driven structure, aiming to minimize expenses through significant automation and low-price value propositions.

Its biggest cost driver is likely marketing expenses, a fixed cost. Other major drivers are in the areas of sales/marketing and customer support/operations, both fixed costs.

Revenue Streams

Tipalti’s has two revenue streams:

• Subscription fees charged for monthly access to its software-as-a-service platform
• Transaction fees such as payment, currency conversion, and invoice processing fees

The company’s sales staff must be contacted directly for specific fee amounts.