Tulyp secures 1.5 million euros to assist small and medium enterprises with import-export operations

Tulyp, a French start-up specializing in the processing of international trade financing transactions, announced on May 16 that it had completed a first seed fundraising of 1.5 million euros. The funding round was led by the pan-European venture capital fund Speedinvest, with the support of Kima Ventures, a fund co-founded by Xavier Niel, Purple and various business angels.

Addressing the risk of document fraud

Created in February 2022, the start-up wishes to democratize access to financing services for international trade for SMEs. The objective is to protect both buyers and sellers, to address counterparty risk and documentary fraud. “Either the buyer or the seller will create a transaction, validated by Tulypexplains Maxime Girres, co-founder of the young company. Then, an escrow account is opened by one of our partners. The buyer blocks the accounts with us and finances his transaction via our network of partners.” After shipping the goods, the start-up checks the transport and shipping information.

With its centralized SaaS platform, Tulyp intends to attract SMEs, for whom access to trade finance services is restricted and mainly reserved for large companies. The start-up highlights the security of its platform through a tripartite contract, preventing the movement of funds without general agreement.

Saving time on validation of operations

Tulyp also hopes to address the complexity of the process for traditional banks, which involves both the buyer's and seller's banks. “Products, such as documentary credit, are very expensive for banksnotes Maxime Girres. Since they require the authorization of many people, it takes two to five working days to set up. At the time of validation, the first bank has five working days to validate the documents, and the second has five working days again to validate everything.” The start-up claims to carry out these international trade financing operations in less than 48 hours.

Currently, Tulyp has around ten physical import-export clients on four continents, particularly in consumer products (cereals, protein powder, construction materials) and electronics. She also works with brokers, and gets paid by taking a percentage of each transaction.

With this first fundraising, the start-up wishes to expand its guarantee activities (payment and financing) to other areas, such as credit insurance, so that the platform becomes a “central point” for its B2B customers. It also wishes to accelerate its commercial development in Europe and Asia, and is targeting one million euros in turnover over the next twelve months.