The Bulgarian expense management startup is in discussions to raise more than $100 million, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (Jan. 7), citing sources familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Payhawk declined to comment when reached by PYMNTS.
The Bloomberg report notes that the planned funding round is a sign of ongoing interest among investors in Europe’s FinTechs. PitchBook analyst Navina Rajan told Bloomberg this sector is “resilient” in Europe despite stiff funding competition from artificial intelligence (AI) startups.
“Outside of AI, in Europe we’ve seen some of the biggest step ups in the FinTech space given the maturity of such companies,” she said.
Founded in 2018, Payhawk helps companies automate and streamline employee travel and card expenses as well as cash and supplier payments and invoices.
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The company in November launched a collaboration with Spain-based eInvoicing company Invopop, expanding Payhawk’s eInvoicing capabilities throughout Europe. As covered here, this lets finance teams receive, validate, approve and pay structured electronic invoices directly within the platform, with no need for added systems or integrations.
Enterprises are turning to Payhawk and its peers as their spending becomes “increasingly digital, globalized and instant,” as PYMNTS wrote last year.
“It is also stubbornly manual in key areas, particularly across financial back offices. This creates an operational plateau that leaves a lot of room for human error, especially around corporate spend when effective spend controls are not in place,” that report added.
The rise of digital payments, remote work and globalized supply chains has led to a complex web of corporate expenses that require tighter control, PYMNTS wrote. But in spite of these challenges, many companies still depend on outdated processes to stay on top of expenses, exposing themselves to inefficiencies, compliance risks, and fraud.
Virtual cards can address a significant piece of the expense management puzzle, though they are even more powerful when woven into a broader, unified expense management solution, the report added.
“These platforms consolidate corporate card transactions, reimbursements, accounts payable, and vendor payments into a single ecosystem, giving businesses a holistic view of their financial operations,” PYMNTS wrote.
