Since launching in 2021, Paperstack onboarded over 250 e-commerce companies that generated over 10 million in demand for working capital in on-demand funding, successfully rolling out new products and increasing their sales. As Paperstack continues to grow, we’ll introduce additional solutions and services that enable e-commerce sellers to further lower overhead costs and profitably scale their business.

“Assel, Vadim and the Paperstack team have been wonderful to work with. They are the embodiment of what a funding partner should be – a partner that genuinely wants you to succeed. They provided us with working capital at a crucial time of growth for our company. Since working with Paperstack, we have been able to expand our team and our space while allowing us to grow our revenues. Not only does Paperstack provide funding, they have also built a wonderful network of entrepreneurs and consistently deliver value through their resources such as their podcasts. They are truly a game changing partner and we are proud to have partnered with them.” —Charlene Li and Vincent Li, founders, Eatable

Designing a commercially viable product, accelerating time to market

We felt the time had come to positively disrupt the e-commerce space by helping small online merchants overcome basic startup costs so they can compete on a global scale. Prior to Paperstack, Assel Beglinova spent over 3 years in banking where she helped thousands of customers to get access to credit. She saw how outdated the process was, and realized that there was so much innovation needed when it came to the internet economy. We also knew we needed to play an active role in closing the funding gap for women, who receive less than three percent of e-commerce venture capital. Being a female immigrant founder and experiencing the realities of fundraising for women founders, Assel made it her mission to empower founders who look and sound like her with the capital and resources they need to grow.

In less than three months, we leveraged the secure-by-design infrastructure of Google Cloud and the expertise of Google Cloud engineers to build the first commercial iteration of Paperstack. Our backend is written in JavaScript, which we seamlessly deploy on App Engine and take advantage of features such as auto scaling. In addition, we use Cloud Functions to create and connect event driven services—and work closely with Google Cloud partner MongoDB to integrate, optimize, and deploy our databases.

We rely on Data Studio to power customizable and personalized dashboards, while innovating quickly and easily on Google Workspace. We’re also looking forward to exploring additional Google Cloud AI and machine learning products such as Vertex AI to further expand the capabilities of our business analytics.

Scaling Paperstack with the Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders

Launching, scaling, and commercializing a market-ready platform on a limited budget would not have been possible without the amazing support of the Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders. Since completing the program, we’ve received positive feedback from investors, raised several rounds of funding, and participated in additional industry accelerators such as Techstars Equitech Accelerator —a partner of Google for Startups—and the FinTech Sandbox Accelerator.

“I am absolutely in love with Paperstack and what they are building. Since helping me land funding I was struggling to access otherwise, they took a chance on my business The Established which allowed me to finally initiate some projects we had been keeping at bay due to lack of resources. I have since strongly connected with the founders and I love what they are doing to build a community and network in which I can feel seen and supported as an marginalized founder.” —Essence Iman, Founder/CEO, The Established

Although we’ve come a long way, our journey is only beginning. We plan to launch Paperstack in new markets worldwide and empower millions of e-commerce companies to build economically sustainable businesses with the financial resources and tools our company provides. We’re also dedicated to helping women founders in the e-commerce space get equal access to capital by designing our underwriting and funding evaluation process in an inclusive, bias-free way. That means our underwriting technology does not disadvantage people who didn’t go to target school, or those who don’t come from a privileged background. As a result, we’ve noticed that 80% of our customers are women and minority founders – or 16 times more than the industry average!

As we expand the Paperstack team, we’ll continue to work closely with our partners at Google for Startups to connect with the right people, products, and best practices to grow our success.

If you want to learn more about how Google Cloud can help your startup, visit our page here to get more information about our program, and sign up for our communications to get a look at our community activities, digital events, special offers, and more.