Exclusive: Pliant raises $80M for spend management infrastructure
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Pliant, which helps banks and software companies offer spend management tools, has raised $80 million in Series C funding, CEO Malte Rau tells Axios exclusively.
Why it matters: Banks want to add expense tools and cards to keep business customers from switching to fintechs.
Zoom in: Seaya Nova and Speedinvest led the round, joined by Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures.
- The Berlin-based company raised a $40 million Series B last year.
How it works: Banks and software providers use Pliant's tools under their own brands and integrate them with their existing systems.
- Pliant's software lets customers issue virtual cards, set spending controls and connect transaction data to their finance tools.
- It serves businesses with high card spending directly, including travel agencies that issue large numbers of virtual cards to pay suppliers.
- Customers can then match those payments to invoices in their finance tools.
State of play: Pliant passed $100 million in annualized revenue in July, Rau says.
- Most revenue comes from card spending, while selling software and infrastructure to banks and fintechs brings higher margins, he says.
- He adds that the U.S. has become its fastest-growing market since launching there this year.
Zoom out: Larger companies are increasingly asking to build their own finance workflows using Pliant's infrastructure and AI assistants, Rau says.
- Pliant's AI tools can search transactions, attach receipts and prepare accounting work.
- Its separate agent payments product is rolling out with pilot customers.
What's next: Pliant plans to expand in North America and invest in technology to support upcoming bank partnerships in the U.S. and U.K.
