In a round led by Index Ventures, French banking player Spendesk has raised €8m to accelerate the build of its prepaid corporate card with an in-built expense report solution. Other backers included Michael Benabou, Laurent Asscher, and Showpad co-founders Louis Jonchkheere and Pieterjan Bouten.
Index Ventures has also backed other leading fintech companies, such as peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle and trading platform Robinhood. The latest round follows Spendesk’s seed raise of €2m in January 2017.
Each employee receives a personal card, which their company can top up in EUR, USD or GBP via an IBAN and limit via a series of different policies. A mobile scanning feature also allows employees to upload receipts, and calculate expenses via Spendesk’s in-app accounting software.
“In most companies, expense management and team purchases are handled with outdated, paper-based processes. Booking a plane ticket online, paying at a restaurant or settling a supplier invoice are frequent and essential actions that should be as easy as checking your inbox,” said Spendesk founder and CEO Rodolphe Ardant.
"Our ambition is to create the perfect tool for finance teams to handle all their payment workflows. Ultimately, finance departments should only use their bank account, their accounting software and Spendesk.”
Founded in 2016 and based in Paris, the platform has managed over $49m in transaction volume to date via its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, with over 600 companies currently testing the cards.
“Spendesk has created a seamless product that their customers love, which is not an easy task when you talk about expenses,” said Dominique Vidal, partner at Index Ventures.
“Whilst many other solutions have digitised the expense management process, Spendesk has built an entirely new workflow to manage spending across the company.”
