Startup Payhawk, the paperless corporate card that simplifies expenses for businesses, just announced closing a €3 million seed funding round, led by Earlybird’s Digital East Fund, and with participation from Berlin-based TinyVC, and industry experts like Mark Antipof, ex-Chief Commercial Officer at Visa Europe, and Keith Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer at Sage. Payhawk will use the new funds to increase its presence in the German market after it recently opened an office in Berlin.
Payhawk, founded in 2018, helps businesses simplify spending, with its next generation paperless company cards. Its unique platform enables CFOs and business owners to manage the entire spending lifecycle end-to-end, from loading employee corporate cards with funds, paying and collecting invoices, to reconciling all transactions in the company accounting software, and finally generating reports. In other words, the platform closes the gap between corporate cards and expense management, by providing a product that works on top of existing banks.
“In many companies, expense management is still far too bureaucratic, non-transparent and full of paperwork,” explains Hristo Borisov, CEO and founder of Payhawk. “Many employees are forced to spend personal funds, manually track expenses with the legacy expense apps, write cumbersome reports and wait months to get reimbursed. Our payment solution addresses exactly this pain point and supports businesses in their transition to a new, paperless and digital age without being forced to switch banks,” explains Hristo Borisov, CEO of Payhawk.
Payhawk currently serves customers in 14 European countries, is based in Sofia and London, and has just opened its third office in Berlin. The startup made its recent move to Germany, as the country’s advanced financial infrastructure makes it possible for Payhawk to connect to more than 3000 banks using PSD2, the European Union Payment Services Directive. In addition, bylaws such as GoBD allow companies to store paper receipts in digital archives in a tax-compliant manner with Payhawk.
“Neobanks paved the way for great customer experience in payments”, says Roland Manger, co-founder and partner at Earlybird. “AI and machine learning already outperform manual data entry of invoices and cloud-based expense apps have existed for more than a decade. Payhawk decided to combine the best of what exists today and integrate it into a next-generation platform with a great customer experience without forcing businesses to switch banks”. He continues, “We were impressed with the strong product DNA of the founding team and their relentless focus on customer experience. Payhawk has great market potential as every business needs a solution like this.”
“The flexibility to use multiple currencies and wallets without the need to top-up cards individually was a game-changer for us. Also, the great customer experience, automation and completeness of the Payhawk platform made us in fact switch from similar products that we used before. We are excited about Payhawk’s product roadmap and the upcoming features that will bring our spend policies to a whole new level”, said Hendrik Drozdoff, Senior Finance Manager at Matchmade, a Finnish influencer platform with hubs in Berlin, Los Angeles and Shanghai.
