Jonas Bøgh Larsen and Emil Hagbarth Rasmussen/Pento
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Ex-Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield among angels backing payroll startup fundraise
Pento has scooped a $15.6m Series A from a number of fintech angel investors and plans to use the cash to grow its staff numbers, expand internationally and build new products.
It seems like fintech founders just can’t get enough of startups and it’s no different for payroll automation startup Pento.
Pento, which was founded by Jonas Bøgh Larsen and Emil Hagbarth Rasmussen in 2017, is on a mission to eliminate time-consuming and often outdated payroll processes by fully automating the product from start to finish.
The fintech has bagged a $15.6m Series A funding round led by US VC firm General Catalyst and also added a list of prominent fintech leaders to its backers too.
Joining the list of backers is Monzo founder and former CEO Tom Blomfield, who dabbled in angel investing in 2018 before work got in the way and, now having stepped back from his role at Monzo, has picked up the baton once more.
"I definitely see myself still way more aligned with founders than investors and actually only put a very small amount of money to help open conversations. I still have much more of a founder mentality than a VC mentality," the Monzo and GoCardless co-founder told AltFi.
"Angel investing keeps my brain occupied but is one-hundredth of the work being a founder was. With Pento, this space is just massively underserved, every company needs a payroll solution and most of the providers are ancient and paper-based or Excel spreadsheets if you're lucky. It's just such an obvious inefficiency, and I think the team is great, the design is modern and efficient and how, how people should work."
Matt Robinson, Blomfield’s fellow GoCardless co-founder also invested in Pento’s latest round.
Other prominent angel investors include Alex Bouaziz co-founder and CEO of remote working fintech Deel, Freddy Macnamara, founder of pay-as-you-drive insurance specialist Cuvva, Eric S. Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom and Timothy Thairu Stripe’s first lead engineer.
As well as a host of angel investors, existing backers Point Nine Capital, Moonfire Ventures, Hustle Fund and Seedcamp took part, with Avid ventures and LocalGlobe also coming on board.
Pento plans to use the fresh capital to bolster its expansion plans, with ambitious international launches on the horizon, build its remote teams across the globe and continue growing its product offering.
“So much of payroll is still stuck in the dark ages. Companies waste too much precious time and resources attempting to manage payroll and responding to avoidable payroll errors,” Pento co-founder and CEO, Jonas Bøgh Larsen, added.
“We want to change that. We’re giving companies the confidence and tools to do it themselves; to make it flexible and easy to get paid in a way that enables everyone to choose for themselves how and when they want it done, without compromising on security, transparency, or speed.”
Since the start of 2021, Pento has consistently had back-to-back record-breaking months, putting it well on track to increase its customer base fivefold by the end of the year.
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