Fluent has announced that it has raised $1.65 million in a series seed funding round led by ff Venture Capital and joined by Digital Currency Group, Crosscut Ventures, Draper Associates, Fenbushi Capital, Lindbergh Tech Fund, and the St. Louis Arch Angels.

"Fluent is offering a robust solution—backed by an exceptional team—to help businesses better manage credit in their supply chain," said John Frankel, Partner, ff Venture Capital. "Fluent is harnessing the underlying technology in cryptocurrency to enable pain-free supply chain financing. This is a space we have been interested in for some time and excited to see such a talented team take a novel approach to reducing friction in global supply chain commerce."

The amount raised will be used to grow the engineering team, bolster business development and expand its sales force to provide banking partners and non-bank lenders alike—such as alternative finance providers, asset-based lenders, and hedge funds—a seamless platform for lending into global supply chains.

With this round, total capital raised by Fluent till date stands at $2.5 million, which includes the amount raised in the November financing round led by Draper Associates with participation from Thomson Reuters, UMB Bank, 500 Startups, SixThirty, and others.

Founded in 2015, Fluent is the enterprise operating network for global commerce built on blockchain technology. Solutions and applications on the network are designed to increase efficiency, provide flexibility, and enhance collaboration across global supply chains.

The company has also opened a satellite office in New York City and will be Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIRs) at Startupbootcamp Fintech NY. As mentors, its team will support early stage fintech startups, providing experience, while leveraging the impressive network of financial institutions within the program including Deutsche Bank, Santander Bank, MasterCard and more.

“We look forward to introducing Fluent to the local partners of our accelerator as well as the investors, industry experts and other founders in the New York City ecosystem- helping them establish themselves as leading fintech startup here,” said managing director of Startupbootcamp, Jesse Podell. “In return, our cohort can benefit from Fluent’s blockchain knowledge as well as share their experiences in fundraising and working with leading financial institutions”.

In addition, Fluent also announced the appointment of blockchain engineer Chris Martin, who has experience with blockchain development and architecture. The company said that it will be hiring more members to support business development and expand sales force moving forward.

Fluent Reveals First Partner

Fluent also announced its relationship with, Commerce Bancshares, a Forbes Top-20 US Bank headquartered in Kansas City, which has been participating in the Fluent Network pilot program since February 2016.

CoinDesk reported that in the forthcoming months Commerce Bancshares will use the platform to experiment with the technology from various angles, including its use for business-to-business (B2B) payments as well as a test of P2P capital generation and deployment.

Fluent CEO Lamar Wilson told CoinDesk that the startup intends to capitalize on interest among major financials in the use of blockchains for supply chain management. Its partnership with Commerce Bancshares marks the first step in a plan to establish a working group focused on these applications.

In a statement, the bank said that it sees the new investment through the lens of its existing customer services.

“Commerce is keenly focused on innovation in the payment space and has for some time now provided customers with a comprehensive suite of highly competitive and often industry-tailored products and technologies,” CoinDesk quoted Chris Wiedenmann, vice president of commercial systems and product innovation for Commerce Bancshares.