Pleo, A Smart Company Card That Automates Expense Reports, Closes $3M Seed Round
- Pleo is a company card paired with an app that automatically does your expense reports
- More than 650 companies signed up for early access to Pleo, currently available in beta
- $3M seed round will go to further product development and public launch in Denmark and UK
The London- and Copenhagen-based FinTech startup Pleo – that offers smart company payment cards – today announced a $3M seed financing round led by Founders, a startup studio backed by Kirkbi A/S, Bestseller and William Demant Invest.
Pleo is a simple out-of-the-box business spending solution. It combines Pleo payment cards – that can be easily assigned to employees and individually set limits – with software and a mobile app to automatically match receipts with payments and track all company spending in real time.
Most companies today rely on shared company credit cards or employees paying for work-related expenses out-ofpocket, filling out expense reports and waiting to get their money back; a painful process for both the company and the employee that can create friction and adds complexity to the administration.
“Every company knows the pains and complexities of dealing with expenses. The amount of interest we have received in the past few months and the sheer number of signups for early access on our website is a glaring indicator that we really are onto something,” says CEO of Pleo Jeppe Rindom, who co-founded the company together with Niccolo Perra, his ex-colleague from Tradeshift.
Currently in beta, Pleo is available to a selected number of companies in the United Kingdom and Denmark with more than 650 companies signed up for early access representing more than 10,000 employees.
“The company credit cards haven’t changed much in 25 years, but Pleo is not just about reinventing the card, Pleo is about using software and data to create a completely new user experience, making life much easier for both employees, managers and finance folks. We call it ‘a simple spending solution for your business,’” says Rindom.
“Pleo is a good example of how breakthrough technology and modern design can create superior user experiences and save business people time and frustration. It has been inspiring to see the team getting to this point, and we look forward to support them in the next stages of growth,” added Stefano Zorzi, Partner of Founders.
Businesses interested in learning more about Pleo‘s offering can visit www.pleo.io. Registration is now open for early access for companies in Denmark and United Kingdom.
How Pleo Works:
Companies can sign up directly from Pleo’s website. The onboarding process, including the anti-money laundering checks, takes only a couple of minutes and requires no paperwork. Right after adding funds to the Pleo account via an existing card or a bank transfer, companies can assign virtual or plastic Pleo cards to the employees with a few clicks.
Each Pleo user can have different spending rights such as ‘per transaction’ or weekly/monthly limits. Tailoring the employee limitations makes managers confident to offer a card to in principle all employees. Employees can finally make work-related purchases without waiting for approval or relying on a manager’s card.
All purchases made with Pleo cards appear instantly in the Pleo web or mobile dashboard here, managers can easily monitor the spending and stay on top of budgets. After each purchase, the user receives a live notification and the application then uses proprietary technology to capture the receipt and categorize the spend. Companies can now say goodbye to expense reports and pending reimbursements.
All the data captured can be fed directly into the customer’s accounting system, which significantly reduces the administrative complexities of the finance function.
Pleo protects all financial information with advanced 24/7 fraud prevention systems. Cardholder data is protected by bank-level data encryption and is stored in PCIDSS level 1-compliant data centers.
Pleo empowers employees to buy things they need for work while giving companies full control and visibility of all company spending. It removes the back-office pains that every company deals with on a daily basis.
About Pleo:
Pleo is an out-of-the-box business spending solution that offers smart payment cards for employees. Pleo offers on-demand Prepaid MasterCard® virtual cards (for online purchases) and plastic cards (for instore purchases) connected to a desktop and mobile app for both employees and managers to track and manage all company expenses in real time.
The company was founded in 2015 by FinTech veterans Jeppe Rindom and Niccolo Perra, both early team members of the Danish startup success, Tradeshift, with years of experience building successful financial products. Pleo has offices in London and Copenhagen.
Pleo is part of the Seedcamp, was selected as one of Europe’s most innovative FinTech startups by Money20/20, listed as one of hottest Nordic FinTech startups by Business Insider and awarded ‘Pioneer of The Year 2016’ by the Pioneers Festival amongst more than 3000 companies.
Currently in beta and available for selected customers, Pleo is planning to launch publicly in Denmark and UK in the next couple of months.
Find out more at: www.pleo.io
About Founders:
Founders is a Scandinavian startup studio backed by Kirkbi A/S (majority owner of the toy company, LEGO A/S), Anders Holck Povlsen (owner of Bestseller A/S with +5,000 fashion retail stores and a major shareholder in Zalando and ASOS) and the Oticon Foundation (majority owner of the hearing aid company, William Demant A/S). Founders builds companies from scratch, together with great entrepreneurs and provides seed funding to ambitious entrepreneurs in early stage. Founders is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. For more information, please visit www.founders.as.
