Liquid

Liquid, operating the product LiquidTrust at goliquid.io, provides payment infrastructure that lets digital platforms hold funds in a dedicated transaction account and release them automatically once predefined conditions are met. The core feature is branded Micro Escrow(R) / Protected Pay: each transaction is isolated and controlled before money moves, with release governed by milestones, approvals, roles and other trust rules configured by the platform. Alongside conditional fund movement, the company handles KYC, KYB, AML, transaction monitoring and compliant fund movement end to end, and supports payouts across more than 200 countries.

The company positions three solution tracks: marketplaces (holding and releasing funds on delivery, milestones or approvals), banks (offering protected global payments without building escrow in-house) and platform partners (embedding trust-based payments into their own products or networks). Integration is offered through hosted flows, a white-label option, or an API, so customers do not have to rebuild their payments stack.

The business originated in a different form: according to a 2021 post by co-founder Yolanda Lau, Liquid was created and spun out of the consulting firm FlexTeam to reduce friction for businesses working with on-demand talent, and at that time described itself as an operating system for agile businesses covering project-centric contracting, work orders, purchase orders and global payments for vendor networks.

Founding story

Co-founder Yolanda Lau writes that Liquid grew out of FlexTeam, a consulting firm she co-founded to give sidelined professionals project-based work. FlexTeam built an internal platform to vet, onboard, manage and pay consultants and to let clients approve scopes of work and pay; that platform was created and spun out as Liquid, which joined Techstars LA and raised venture capital.

Business model

Liquid sells embedded payment infrastructure to other businesses (marketplaces, banks and platform partners) rather than to end consumers, delivering escrow, verification/compliance and cross-border payout capability as a service that customers integrate into their own products.

The website advertises a single all-in fee of 1% for Protected Pay (Micro Escrow(R)), covering trust, compliance and global payouts. Platforms may absorb the fee, pass it through to their users, share it, or mark it up as a revenue source.

Traction

As of the November 2021 post, hundreds of businesses across marketing agencies, startups, production companies, social enterprises and SMBs used the platform, paying talent and vendors in the U.S. and 175+ countries, and Liquid had securely processed millions of dollars in global payments over the prior year. aVenture lists 30 employees and a Series A stage. The website references unnamed programs, awards and investors.

Latest developments

The current goliquid.io site markets LiquidTrust with Micro Escrow(R), flat 1% Protected Pay pricing, 200+ country coverage, and dedicated offerings for marketplaces, banks and platform partners.