Fintech startup Pleo, that offers smart company payment cards to automate expense reports, today announced a €13 million ($16 million) Series A financing round led by Kinnevik, with participation from existing investors Creandum, Founders and Seedcamp. At over €13 million this round is one of the biggest Series A rounds ever raised by a startup in the region.
Pleo is a simple business spending solution. It combines a special payment cards for employees with software and mobile apps to automatically match receipts and track all company spending. The aim is to make buying things for work easier without expense reports, and to automate bookkeeping tasks as it integrates directly with accounting software providers.
Currently available only in the UK and Denmark, and the startup reports that around 1500 companies have switched to Pleo just in the last year, with reportedly 10 new joining each day.
“It’s quite amazing what we have achieved in just a year in only two countries, since our launch from beta. We’ve seen tremendous growth and great reception, due to our very focused and localised approach. Our NPS score is around 80, we receive incredible reviews and have negative churn, all very clear indicators that we are on the right path. We are now ready to expand our services across other European countries. The backing from Kinnevik, one of the most reputable European investment funds, will help us achieve our ambitious goals,” said Jeppe Rindom, who co-founded Pleo
Jeppe co-founded Pleo with Niccolo Perra, both early employees at another Danish startup success, Tradeshift. And the ambitions for Pleo are just as big – Pleo is now planning to rapidly expand it’s headcount in Denmark, UK and other countries around Europe. The aim to grow from todays 50 to more than 200 employees by the end of 2019, to help scale and accelerate product development:
“We are expanding our product offerings to fit more complex needs of bigger organisations by adding more customized workflows, different integrations and premium offerings very soon. Our objective is to be become a default solution to handle all company spending for businesses of different sizes and needs, on each of the new markets that we will enter,” added Jeppe.
Having Kinnevik, one of Swedens largest investors which has for a long time focused on telecom and the last decade e-commerce, with Rocket Internet, Zalando, and Global Fashion Group in it’s portfolio, being the lead investor in a fintech startup is not that usual.
“They have shown strong growth and outstanding customer loyalty in a very short period of time. We are very excited to support their long-term journey and look forward to supporting their launch in new markets to become the European industry leader,” said Andreas Bernstrom at Kinnevik.
Andreas Bernstrom is Investment Director at Kinnevik, and will bejoining the company’s board as well.
