Another big bet on “FinTech,” Palo-Alto based BlueVine has raised $40 million to provide credit lines for small businesses. The round is led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Rakuten, Lightspeed and 83North. While there are countless startups involved in small business lending, BlueVine does something a little different. Instead of offering loans, BlueVine does what’s called “factoring,” where they pay for customer invoices upfront, so that small businesses do not have to wait for the cash to come in. Cash flow is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses and BlueVine says it is tapping into a market that banks often overlook. “We are disrupting a very very old industry called invoice factoring,” said Eyal Lifshitz, founder and CEO at BlueVine.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/20/bluevine-raises-40-million-to-help-small-businesses-with-cash-flow/