London-based fintech Soldo has closed a $61 million Series B round led by Battery Ventures, a global technology-focused investment firm with extensive experience in cloud software, and Dawn Capital, Europe’s largest venture capital fund dedicated to B2B software and fintech, which counts iZettle and Mimecast among its investments.
The business aims to create the next generation of payments and expense management solutions for businesses of all sizes.
The funding round includes participation from global VC firm Accel – who have also invested in big name tech companies such as Facebook and Slack, as well as Connect Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. The round brings Soldo’s funding total to $82 million.
Soldo’s Series B round is the largest to date for a financial technology company in the spend management space, and includes participation from some of the world’s most high-profile technology investors, firmly cementing Soldo’s leadership position in a sector with a potential reach of 20 million businesses across Europe.
Soldo is an integrated and effective solution that enables companies to continue using their existing bank accounts, but provides a dedicated spending account which preemptively controls and streamlines the spend management cycle.
Prepaid Mastercards and an intuitive user app enables transaction data to be recorded at the point of purchase, and all data integrates seamlessly with business accounting software such as Xero, Quickbooks, Concur, Expensify, NetSuite, Zucchetti and SAP.
Founder and CEO of Soldo, Carlo Gualandri, said, “I’m very proud of the team’s achievements over the past 12 months, but we have barely scratched the surface of the opportunity ahead of us.
“There are over 3 million businesses in our target markets, the UK and Italy, and over 5.5 million businesses in the next three largest markets in Europe. The time saving and additional control over company spending and expense management that Soldo offers businesses of all sizes is a true game-changer, and we will continue to accelerate growth and consolidate our position as market leaders in the UK, Italy and Ireland over the next 12 months.”
The Series B funding will be used to boost Soldo’s position in the UK where it holds an e-money licence, Italy and Ireland, where it was recently awarded a second prestigious e-money licence from Ireland’s central bank – the third such licence ever granted – making it Brexit-ready for all its European customers.
“With more employees now empowered to incur business expenses, and more expense-management processes moving to the cloud, today’s corporate-expense programs must adapt to keep up—in Europe as well as the U.S.,” said Itzik Parnafes, a general partner at Battery Ventures.
“We are excited to partner with Carlo and his team as Soldo continues to expand and push the envelope of what’s possible in next-generation expense management.”
The funding will also be used to scale into new European markets and double Soldo’s workforce over the next 12 months.