With further investment from Industry Ventures, the start-up, which already has support from BTV, Garage, and Tapestry, says it will use the additional funds to advance product development in the domains of expenditure management, a marketplace for financial APIs, and "smart credit products."

The money comes in parallel with a six-fold rise in revenues last year, it claims, and the raise is "the next step toward Relay's overarching goal of delivering AI-powered predictive cash flow analytics to SMBs."

According to its website, the Relay platform was established in 2018 with the goal of “helping small businesses take control of their cash flow.” It supports a number of services, such as online current accounts, the issuing of up to 50 virtual and physical Visa debit cards, ACH transfers, and tools for collecting payments.

According to the start-up, 40% of its business clients use Relay as their main banking platform and engage with it on a daily basis, use the service an average of 13 times each month. With the recent restricted release of its Visa credit card with 1.5% cashback and the announcement that "a line of credit is slated to come," it increased its attractiveness to small enterprises.

Yoseph West, co-founder and CEO of Relay, states that 68% of small company owners in the US struggle with cash flow. He bases this on statistics from Intuit QuickBooks for 2022. "By combining financial services with software and making banking harder for them, Relay gives them cash flow clarity and control—what SMBs need to sustainably fuel everyday operations."