Our investment in Paperstack
We are excited to announce that Matchstick Ventures Fund IV has completed an investment in Paperstack, a fintech company providing non-dilutive working capital to fast-growing, omni-channel e-commerce brands. As customer acquisition costs rise and inventory cycles lengthen, 7- and 8-figure CPG brands are increasingly constrained by cash flow. Traditional financing options are often too slow, rigid, or expensive, leaving these brands struggling to meet demand. With over 40 million eCommerce businesses globally, Paperstack is tapping into a massive market need to enable smarter, more flexible access to capital.
Paperstack solves this problem through a proprietary underwriting platform that integrates directly with a brand’s financial and commerce systems. Its technology analyzes over 100 real-time data points to assess risk and deliver funding offers within 24 - 48 hours. This fast and transparent model has driven strong retention (84%) and repeat usage, embedding Paperstack deeply in customer operations. As Paperstack collects more performance data from the brands it funds, it builds a durable data advantage that compounds over time, positioning the company to launch new financial products tailored to this underserved customer base.
Paperstack is led by co-founders Assel Beglinova (CEO) and Vadim Lidich (CTO), who bring a rare combination of fintech and engineering experience. The duo met in college and share a mission to modernize financial services for the digital economy. Assel’s banking background provided firsthand exposure to the failures of traditional finance in serving high-growth online brands. Together, the founding team has already attracted over 2,500 applicants to the platform, giving them unmatched visibility into the capital challenges of modern CPG businesses. With strong early traction, deep domain knowledge, and a clear product edge, Paperstack is poised to become the financial backbone for the next generation of e-commerce brands.
Why we’re excited about Paperstack:
Paperstack represents a rare opportunity to back a fintech platform that’s already proven product-market fit, strong unit economics, and a scalable path to becoming a category leader in private credit for e-commerce. In just three years, the team has originated over $30M in working capital advances across 65+ clients while delivering a gross portfolio IRR of ~30% with <1% default rates, numbers that rival top-performing alternative credit funds. But what sets them apart is the combo of technology-driven underwriting with quick decisions, real-time monitoring, omni-channel integrations that dramatically improve scalability, and transparent pricing. The $264B U.S. merchant financing market is massive, underserved, and fragmented; Paperstack is carving out a defensible niche by focusing on mid-market e-commerce brands, often with seasonal businesses that struggle to land traditional financing, and embedding itself into their workflows.
The leadership team is equally compelling. CEO Assel Beglinova, a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, brings deep banking and capital markets experience and has already built fintech distribution partnerships with players like Brex and Highbeam. Co-founder Vadim Lidich designed the credit architecture and risk systems with institutional-grade rigor, honed from his background in wealth management and asset allocation. Together, they’ve built an institutional-grade platform with the ambition to scale from $30M AUM today to $250M+ in four years through portfolio leverage, new credit products, and a SaaS expansion strategy that monetizes their underwriting infrastructure - all while remaining cash-flow positive. For us, Paperstack is not just another revenue-based financing player; it is poised to become a market leader in fintech and private credit for e-commerce and beyond.
Learn more at:
https://paperstack.ai