Copenhagen-based Pleo provides companies with payment cards that can be easily assigned to employees, with individually set limits. Pleo’s smart company cards are linked to software and mobile apps, automatically matching receipts and tracking all company spending in real-time with detailed analytics. The fintech thus eliminates the need for expense reports and automates bookkeeping tasks, integrating directly with accounting software, and saving companies both time and money.
Founded in 2015, Pleo today announced it has raised €50 million in a Series B financing round led by Stripes, a leading New York-based growth fund, with participation from existing investors Kinnevik, Creandum and Founders. The round brings the total amount raised by the scale-up to €70 million.
Founded in 2015 with the aim of transforming the tedious business expense process, Pleo has achieved dynamic growth. Last year’s $16 million Series A funding round was Denmark’s largest in a decade, and today’s round represents Denmark’s largest Series B.
More than 3,500 companies of all sizes and verticals have switched to Pleo across the UK, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. Its customers include Airsorted, The Tab, Lyst, Yoyo, Pizza Pilgrims and Roskilde Festival amongst others, with hundreds of new businesses joining Pleo every month.
“Managing work-related spending has traditionally caused headaches for employees and their employers alike. Pleo is making the whole process simpler, quicker and more transparent,” said Jeppe Rindom, co-founder and CEO of Pleo. “We are building a solution to fit the needs of today’s modern workforce – reshaping how businesses manage company spending, and how they operate, enabling staff to feel more empowered and ultimately more productive. By making the employee experience our primary focus from day one, we’ve achieved outstanding growth, rave reviews and extremely strong customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
Research shows less than one in five employees are given access to a corporate credit card – while the rest are left to foot the cost of business expenses out of their own pocket. Pleo is changing this – on average, it has quadrupled the number of cards within a company, making it one of the biggest corporate card providers in the Nordics.
Pleo will use the new funding to more than triple its team, from 120 to 400 employees by the end of 2020, and to accelerate its product development as it plans to add more services to its offering for SMEs in Europe, including credit, invoices, mobile payments, a vendor marketplace, VAT reclamation, and more.
“While we are competing with banks in this one area we are not aiming to become one. We remain committed to providing the best product in the market for business spending,” added Rindom. “We haven’t touched the funds from our Series A round less than a year ago, yet we see enormous potential and demand for Pleo. We are delighted to partner with Stripes and are confident the partnership will help us achieve our ambition to become the de facto standard for business spending.”
“We are thrilled to partner with Jeppe and the rest of the Pleo team on their mission to reshape business spending across all verticals and geographies, and to help fuel their ambitious growth journey,” added Ken Fox, Founder and Managing Partner of Stripes.
By the way: If you’re interested to join a fast-growing startup like Pleo, make sure to check out the EU-Startups Job Board.
