About a month after closing a $7M funding round, Tradeshift is doing better and better. Their platform is now available in Finnish and Dutch languages to attract even more local businesses use the network. 'Of all the European markets we are in, the Netherlands and Finland are among the most mature when it comes to online invoicing', comments Christian Lanng, CEO. 'The adoption of e-invoicing has been driven [there] by the Governments which has resulted in highly competitive e-invoicing markets'. Turns out that even before Tradeshift was translated into Finnish and Dutch, their free e-invoicing model was already being used by businesses of all sizes as an alternative to traditional online invoicing providers.

E-invoicing is part of Tradeshift's larger goal to build a social network for businesses. The idea there is to increase efficiency in communication between all the business partners. When creating a profile on Tradeshift, companies add other businesses they work with to their network to send them invoices and share documents. A number of other applications and features are available for a price.

Since a large part of local businesses in Europe operate in their own language, it is important for business communication channels to be available in that language too. Thus, adding more and more languages to their service helps Tradeshift effectively grow their userbase.

So far the company boasts presense in 190 countries (10 up from May) and more than 50,000 users. The number of companies using the service has been growing exponentially during the last six months: more than 2,000 companies were signing up to the service weekly.

Tradeshift also recently opened their platform for developers. Not only does this enrich the service with useful applications, it brings money to Tradeshift who charges app developers for a share of revenue. The company also offers a payment solution for businesses in a few markets, deriving a small cut from that too.

Apart from fast growth and fierce ambition, Tradeshift has some very impressive clients like UK's NHS, Irish and French governments, Coop, TDC, DT Group and DSV. The company was founded in 2009. It is headquartered in Copenhagen and has offices in London, Bern, Munich and Brasilia.

Image by EEPaul