Payhawk raises $112 million in the second largest Series B in Central and Eastern Europe

From the press release

• Only seven months after closing its $20m Series A financing round, Payhawk announces its Series B of $112m all equity round led by US investor Greenoaks, who previously invested in high-growth companies like Checkout.com, Robinhood, Stripe and Brex
• This is the second largest ever Series B for a B2B company in the CEE region after UiPath, and is the largest and fastest Series B in the spend management space across Europe
• All existing investors, including QED Investors, Earlybird Digital East and Eleven Ventures are participating in the round
• Payhawk currently serves companies in 27 countries with its company cards and spend management platform across Europe and will continue its global expansion with aims to open offices in the US, Netherlands, France, Australia and Singapore
• The fintech will use the new funds to accelerate its product roadmap with the launch of a credit card in Q1 2022, and low-cost cross-border transfers as an alternative to SWIFT payments

Payhawk, the payments and expense solution with offices in London, Sofia, Berlin and Barcelona, has raised $112 million just three years after its inception, valuing the company at $570m. The Series B round is led by the San Francisco-based investor Greenoaks, who has a strong track record of investing in high-growth technology companies such as Gorillas, Robinhood, Stripe and Brex. All existing investors, including QED Investors, Earlybird Digital East and Eleven Ventures are participating in the round.

Currently, finance teams are still bound to a high amount of manual work as they are using multiple disconnected tools for cards, payments, invoices and expense management. Payhawk reduces the amount of manual work by combining those key elements in one platform and therefore acting as a one-stop-shop for finance teams.

With high-growth companies, in particular, looking to digitise financial processes, Payhawk emerges as the leading platform for large SMEs and enterprise customers, especially those multinationals who have multiple offices worldwide.

In 2021, Payhawk introduced 3% cashback on all POS spend, capped at your subscription, new enterprise features, free bill payments, and support for Apple Pay and Google Pay in 30 countries. Since its Series A round, transaction volume through the platform has increased by 663% and continues to grow at 45%+ month-on-month in October. Its customer base consists of a mix of scale-ups and corporates in 27 countries across Europe, including A.T.U, Luxair, Flink, Viking Life and Wagestream.

In 2022, Payhawk will continue its expansion by aiming to open offices in the U.S., the Netherlands, Australia and Singapore, enabling the company to further expand its product offering by introducing credit cards and allowing smarter and cheaper cross-border transactions on top of its invoice management system.

These expansion and product build plans will run in tandem with growing the marketing and sales team in Payhawk’s key markets of the UK, Germany, Spain and Benelux. To further boost its enterprise focus, the company has appointed Paul Albert as SVP Global Sales, who will lead direct sales, partnerships and customer success.

Patrick Backhouse, a Partner of Greenoaks, said, “Ask any business owner, and they’ll tell you that managing corporate spend is among the most frustrating parts of running a company. It requires significant manual work that consumes employee time and introduces substantial room for error. Payhawk turns a fragmented process into a seamless one, providing a single place to manage the entire spending lifecycle from corporate cards to expenses and bill payments to invoices. We’ve been thrilled to see how fast they’ve grown, already serving a truly global customer base that’s attracted by powerful and delightful software. We think that painful expense reports and bill payments should be a thing of the past, and we are excited to partner with Payhawk on the way to getting there.”

Hristo Borisov, CEO and Founder at Payhawk, said, "Managing company cards, especially reports, bill payments, and invoices is currently a disconnected experience bridged by finance teams through a lot of manual work. We are building enterprise software running on global payments infrastructure that automates all spend processes. Our strong product background and engineering team allows us to move at break-neck speed. This, in turn, will enable global enterprises and fast-growing technology companies to transform how they manage their company spending, and improve efficiencies while unlocking employee time to be better spent elsewhere."