When the Hell Are They Going to Pay?

01 /The Concept

Anchor automates the entire sales documentation cycle for small and mid-sized businesses – from sending proposals to collecting payment.

The workflow starts with a proposal: sellers draft contracts directly in the app and send them electronically to clients. Clients can sign with a legally binding e-signature via the app or a web portal. On signing their first contract, clients enter a payment method – bank account or card – which is stored for all future transactions.

After each signed contract, Anchor automatically generates the corresponding invoice with the terms pulled directly from the document. When payment is due, Anchor charges the client's saved payment method automatically.

Anchor also integrates with the seller's bank account and accounting system, reconciling incoming payments and booking them to the correct ledger entries by contract type – without any manual intervention.

The pricing model is deliberately simple: no subscription, no revenue share. Sellers pay a flat $5 per payment received through the platform.

The results clients report are striking: contract signing time drops from 45 days to under 24 hours, monthly revenue increases by 30%, and the rate of unpaid invoices falls from 5% to 1%.

Anchor's revenue grew 6x in 2024. On the back of that, the company raised $20M in new funding, adding to the $15M raised at launch in 2021.

02 /Why It Matters

Anchor's platform initially struck this reviewer as almost too simple – but $35M in total funding prompted a closer look at what problem is actually being solved. The answer turned out to be much larger than expected.

Late payment is a near-universal problem in B2B commerce. In the US, at any given moment, at least half of all outstanding B2B invoices are overdue. In the UK, 36% of all payments received in a given month are late. Across all product and service categories, invoices take an average of 50–60 days to settle – forcing suppliers to constantly hunt for working capital to cover the cash flow gap.

The numbers are staggering at scale. In 2023, US small and mid-sized businesses alone were owed $825 billion in overdue invoices.

For context: the e-commerce industry's much-discussed problem of abandoned shopping carts – orders that were started but never completed – represents roughly $260 billion in potential annual revenue. Overdue B2B invoices are more than three times larger, and the consequences of non-payment are far more severe for a supplier than a lost retail sale.

Yet the startup ecosystem has produced dozens of companies attacking the abandoned cart problem and only a handful targeting late B2B payments. That imbalance is the real opportunity.

A few others are working in this space.

Agree ([related review](/review/samye-luchshie-klienty)) raised $3M in its first round for a platform functionally similar to Anchor.

Subskribe ([covered here](/review/chtoby-konkurirovat-nuzhno-umet-torgovatsja)) raised $18.4M for a variant purpose-built for cloud software vendors, handling complex, customer-specific pricing terms and auto-syncing them to billing systems so monthly invoices always match negotiated agreements.

Dimely ([related review](/review/u-nih-uzhe-est-dengi-no-vot-jetogo-eshhjo-ne-hvataet)) went through Y Combinator with a smarter contract analysis layer: its AI reads any signed contract, extracts payment milestones, and auto-generates the corresponding invoice schedule – handling mixed contract types that simpler tools would choke on.

03 /Opportunities

The narrow opportunity is building platforms that accelerate contract signing and payment collection in B2B sales. The broader one is digitizing B2B commerce in general.

B2B transactions still lag far behind consumer e-commerce in digitization – yet the dollar volumes are far larger. That gap means relatively simple digital tools can command strong pricing and capture significant value.

A few examples illustrate the point.

Volta ([related review](/review/v-jelektronnoj-kommercii-opjat-pojavilsja-shans-sdelat-milliardnyj-startap)) raised €6M in its first round for a comprehensive B2B sales digitization platform.

Plato ([covered here](/review/zachem-iskat-slozhnuju-zadachu-esli-mozhno-reshit-prostuju)) also raised €6M in its first round for an AI platform that saves time for employees at wholesale and distribution companies.

Catalog ([covered previously](/review/a-chto-prodavat-srednim)) raised €3M in its first round for a platform that helps B2B sellers manage inbound inquiries, send quotes, and enter order data into backend systems.

And Seals ([related review](/review/bolshie-dengi-krutjashhiesja-pod-pokrovom-tishiny)), a Y Combinator graduate, is building AI-powered digital workers for wholesalers and distributors – capable of handling invoicing and payment collection alongside other tasks.

B2B digitization has a long runway – and the businesses most willing to pay are those where manual paperwork creates the most immediate pain. Contract-to-payment cycles in professional services and consulting are a particularly clean starting point.