Tradeshift raises $75M to expand its business payments network internationally

Tradeshift, a company that provides free electronic invoicing along with tools for managing payments and buyer-seller relationships, is announcing today a new $75 million funding round.

The fresh money comes from Scentan Ventures, based in Singapore. It will help Tradeshift expand in Asia and set up an office in Tokyo. To date, Tradeshift has raised $112 million; Intuit and PayPal are among the companies that have previously invested.

Tradeshift is one of a few companies aimed at easing the operations of buyers and sellers around the world and creating a network or platform that abstracts away much of the complexity of existing accounting and enterprise resource planning software, while still offering integration.

Competitors include Ariba, Basware, Coupa Software, and OB10.

Tradeshift provides dynamic discounting, allowing buyers to receive considerable discounts if they pay their suppliers quickly. The longer they put off payment, the smaller the discount gets. And a third-party financing service like Capital Aid can hook in to Tradeshift to make sure suppliers have access to capital in order to deliver on what big businesses want.

San Francisco-based Tradeshift launched in 2010. It now claims 500,000 businesses are connected on the service, where they can set up a public profile to help themselves get discovered. The company doesn’t say how many businesses pay to use Tradeshift, as opposed to just getting free invoicing capability. It does count DHL, the French government, and Vestas Wind Systems among its users.