French fintech startup Pennylane is the first automated financial and accounting management platform designed for SMEs and their accountants. The company just secured $57 million in a Series B funding round led by existing investors Global Founders Capital, Sequoia Capital and Paris-based VC Partech, which also invested in Chatdesk and Kenbi recently. With this round, the total investment secured by Pennylane is now $96 million since its debut in 2020.
European expansion plans
The funds will be used to accelerate the expansion of its financial OS to European SMBs and accounting firms. Furthermore, it plans to add 200 employees by the end of 2022 across data, development and product teams and create Europe’s largest technical team of 275 people in the accounting tech industry. Pennylane will focus on its European expansion in 2023 by entering Germany, Romania, and Spain.
Arthur Waller, CEO and co-founder of Pennylane said: “This new funding round comes at a pivotal point in our growth. We have all the elements to significantly scale up and to continue to develop the best accounting tool on the market. We’re also really proud of our remote-first culture and are excited to grow our team and recruit the most talented people across tech and data regardless of where they are”.
“We are proud to once again support Pennylane in its growth, a company that has developed the most advanced tool on the market to support accountants and managers on a daily basis. From day one, we have been impressed by the speed of execution of the co-founders and their team, enabling them to position themselves as the European gem of Accountech,” added David Sainteff, Partner at Global Founders Capital.
“In a very short time, Pennylane has seen remarkable traction with accountancy firms and SMEs in France, as they solve the financial and accounting pain points across these two markets. We’re continuously impressed by the vision of the founders, their ability to execute on product and the spectacular growth of the company.” said Luciana Lixandru, Partner at Sequoia. “We’re proud to carry on this adventure with Pennylane, as they build the go-to financial operating system for accountants and small businesses across Europe”
Accountants make better decisions
Pennylane was founded by Arthur Waller, Quentin de Metz, Tancrede Besnard, Edouard Mascré, Alexandre Roquoplo, Thierry Deo and Felix Blossier during the pandemic. The company provides real-time access to reliable and actionable data to managers and their accountants. The fintech startup has developed a platform combining a complete production software for accountants and a financial management tool for their clients.
This shared tool lets accountants spend relatively lesser time processing data and more time analysing the same. With this tool, their executive clients can spend lesser time on administrative management and have the tools they need to manage their business. Pennylane lets accountants and managers make the best decisions for their businesses.
Furthermore, the company has developed a full-stack financial management platform to deal with financial data. As it centralises the fragmented data, the platform lets business managers get a real-time view of their financial data, thereby helping them make the best decisions. With the platform, business leaders can access their complete, and up-to-date financial data at any time.
Pennylane acts as the central repository where your financial data is always up to date. Focused on SMEs, Pennlylane has already attracted hundreds of clients and has over 1,000 executives using its platform. It helps businesses use Microsoft Excel or any other financial tool for their financial projections or to send invoices, payroll info, and more to your accountant, then Pennylane also lets you do almost the same thing at a lesser time.
With this platform, SMEs can connect their account with third-party services that already hold valuable information such as Stripe, Payfit, Qonto, etc. As data is synchronised on a timely basis, accountants can check outstanding invoices, pay suppliers and see where they are standing when it comes to outbound and inbound payments.
Significant growth!
Pennylane witnessed exponential growth as it helps both SME’s and accountants. It has witnessed its volume of direct customers grow by up to 98 percent in six months. Also, accountants are recommending the platform to their clients and vice versa. In recent months, the number of companies using Pennylane with the recommendation of their accountants has increased to 81 percent from 22 percent.
