Banks and VCs invest in Sensibill’s gig economy invoice tech

Demand for contractor and small business billing apps has helped Toronto fintech Sensibill expand and attract funding.

AI-focused venture fund Radical Ventures is the lead investor in a $31.5 million Series B round in Sensibill, which boosts it overall financing to $46.5 million. National Bank of Canada is also part of the investment round.

Sensibill’s clients, including RBS, National Bank of Canada and Scotiabank, place its invoicing technology into their mobile banking apps to allow mostly freelancers and small businesses to manage receipts through their smartphones.

The businesses and banks use Sensibill’s machine learning engine to track product information, perform auto-categorization and process payments.

The platform uses machine learning to structure receipt data and give both banks and their customers rich insights such as product information, return policy tracking, payment records and auto-categorization.

Since its initial Series A funding round in 2017, in the past two years Sensibill has drawn more than 30 bank clients in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., and opened a second office in London. The activity has been spurred by a larger trend toward using alternative payment and billing methods to serve the freelance and contractor-heavy “gig economy.”

The company was founded in 2013, and has roots in a Toronto university program for technology startups.