Business payments facilitator Spenmo has raised $34 million in a Series A investment round.
Oversubscribed by a multiple of 5, the round is the largest Series A funding round ever closed for a South-East Asian company which is backed by Y Combinator. It was led by New York-based venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners and included participation from Lee Fixel’s Addition, Salesforce Ventures, Alpha JWC, Global Founders’ Capital, Broadhaven, Operator Partners, and Commerce Ventures, as well as angel investors William Hockey (Founder of Plaid), Andy Cohen (Ex-SVP of Sales, Bill.com), Ongki Kurniawan (Head of Stripe Indonesia), Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal (Founders of Snapdeal), Matt Doka (Founder of Fivestars) and John Kim (Founder of Sendbird.)
Prior to this round, the company had raised seed capital from Y Combinator, with participation from Flash Ventures, Rocket Internet, Iterative Capital, and the XA Network. According to the company, the proceeds from the funding round would be utilized towards building market share and reaching the 20 million small and medium-sized businesses and mid-market companies in South-East Asia which lack access to software to manage their payments.
The company is known to help companies manage their spending efficiently and pay bills, track and categorize expenditure, and close books on autopilot in lesser time through local and overseas invoice payments, accounting automation, and an approval-based spending mechanism. It offers smart corporate cards and helps companies control, manage budgets, and make forecasts more accurately. The start-up claims that finance teams using its software save over 50 hours and $10,000 monthly. It has a goal to give back 10 billion man-hours annually to finance teams across the region. It has over 60 employees and was part of the winter 2021 cohort of Singapore-based accelerator Iterative.
“Insight is thrilled to partner with Spenmo as the company builds its category-leading finance workflow software. The payments industry is ripe for disruption, especially in the untapped Southeast Asian market. We’re excited to play a role in Spenmo’s ScaleUp journey as the company continues to innovate and expand,” said Insight Partners principal Rebecca Liu-Doyle, who will be a part of Spenmo’s board of directors from now on.
