It won’t be an exaggeration to state that the French tech startup ecosystem is booming in 2022. While we are still in the first month of this year, four French companies including PayFit, Ankorstore, Qonto and Exotec joined the unicorn club. Now, France has got its fifth unicorn – Spendesk.
Fifth French unicorn of 2022
The all-in-one spend management solution for SMBs has just raised €100 million ($114 million) as an extension to the Series C round it picked up in July 2021. The investment came from the American VC fund Tiger Global alongside participation from General Atlantic, Eight Roads Ventures, Index Ventures, and eFounders. With this round, its valuation reaches $1.14 billion.
The Paris-based fintech plans to use the funds to increase its headcount. It intends to hire 300 new people in 2022. Also, Spendesk will further invest in its product to meet the growing demands of its customers at scale.
“Bringing in the best and brightest people is my top priority right now,” said Spendesk’s CEO and co-founder, Rodolphe Ardant. “We’ll need to build and bolster our talent bench in all departments to help us achieve our ambitious goals for next year. I want to continue building on the exceptional culture that Spendesk is known for. We’re making huge investments in our platform this year, to make Spendesk accessible to more teams, provide actionable data and insights through our product, and make spending at work a frictionless process,” said Rodolphe Ardant, CEO and co-founder of Spendesk.
John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global, said: “There is a multi-billion market opportunity ahead for Spendesk, and only a very small number of businesses have opted for a modern spend management solution. Spendesk has invested in a real end-to-end experience for finance teams early on, which we believe is the winning recipe in this increasingly competitive market. We are impressed with Spendesk’s ability to meet rapidly evolving customer needs in a very dynamic environment. This agility and drive to innovate is why we are super excited to be part of the Spendesk journey in 2022 and beyond.”
Smart spend management software
Founded in 2016 by Rodolphe Ardant, Guilhem Bellion, and Jordane Giuly, Spendesk offers a SaaS-based spend management solution that provides full visibility and control on all company spending. It makes every purchase trackable to a person, a project, and a budget.
In the current work culture, employees crave more empowerment, agility, and faster decision-making to be effective in their roles. Traditionally, finance teams have not been equipped with the tools that can support this transformation.
The 7-in-1 platform frees businesses and people from the complicated and
bureaucratic process of spending and managing money at work. Spendesk customers can order physical cards for employees and team members can use the platform to pay outstanding invoices, file expense reports, manage budgets and generate spending reports.
By offering everything in a single service, Spendesk wants to simplify accounting and approvals in general so that money moves more freely.
Spendesk is trusted by thousands of businesses from startups to established brands including Algolia, Soundcloud, Curve, Doctolib, Gousto, Raisin, Sezane, and Wefox.
On the competition front, Spendesk competes against the likes of German fintech Pleo, London-based Soldo, and US companies Brex and Ramp that have high valuations.
Uber alumni joins Spendesk
Recently, Uber alumni Erin Reiger Zas joined the leadership team of Spendesk as Chief People Officer. The appointment was to put even more investment in programs to continue to build on the rich culture that has earned Spendesk the title of “best fintech employer in Europe” from Glassdoor.
“I’m thrilled to have joined a company that puts the success of their employees at the centre of the company mission. Ownership and trust are deeply rooted in our culture. We can give Spendeskers the flexibility they need to thrive because we know everyone takes ownership for our collective success,” said Reiger Zas.
In 2021, Spendesk appointed 100 people across its offices in London, Paris, San Francisco, Berlin, and Hamburg. Notably, the fintech company has witnessed remarkable growth during the pandemic. It has more than doubled its revenue every year, and has managed more than €3 billion spent on its platform in 2021.
