Pipe Picks Product Chief Claurelle Rakipovic as New CEO

Embedded capital FinTech Pipe is reportedly set to name a new chief executive.

Luke Voiles, who became the company’s CEO in 2023, will be replaced by Pipe’s chief product officer Claurelle Rakipovic, the company announced Monday.

With Pipe for a year, Rakipovic has helped turn Pipe’s offering into a “capital product capable of growing into a full embedded OS for small businesses,” the company said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“Claurelle had a deep resume as an executive and product visionary before joining Pipe, and spent six years at Amazon building their small business lending product from the ground up,” the release added.

The company said Voiles and Pipe’s board have been working on a leadership change as part of the company’s focus on profitability, operating efficiency and its core product set.

“It was quickly clear during these conversations that Claurelle’s experience and deep industry knowledge made her the right leader for the company going forward,” the release said, noting that Voiles had transformed the company during his tenure and positioned it for its next phase of growth.

The transition had been reported Sunday (Dec. 7) in a LinkedIn post from Jason Mikula of FinTech Business Weekly. His report noted that Voiles has said that Pipe had roughly $200 million “in the bank” when he joined the company, which he characterized at the time as “nearly five years” of runway.

The news follows reports from last month that Pipe had instituted job cuts affecting around half of its 150-person workforce.

In a statement sent to the website FinTech Futures, a company spokesperson described the move as “a difficult decision to shift to a leaner org structure.”

The statement added that while “Pipe’s business is strong and growing rapidly,” the FinTech “needs to put a stronger focus on profitability, operating efficiency, and our core product set” to be able to scale the company “in the right way.”

In September, PYMNTS wrote that Pipe had launched a partnership with Uber designed to help restaurants access working capital.

And earlier this year, Pipe acquired Glean.ai, adding that company’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered spend management offering to Pipe’s embedded financial solutions for software platforms which serve small businesses.

“With seamless access to capital and smarter spend insights, we’re enabling sustainable growth, better operational oversight and long-term success for small businesses,” Voiles said at the time.

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster spoke with Voiles last year about the challenges facing smaller companies — micro-businesses lining American Main Streets — as they try to gain access to credit products to help them manage day-to-day operations and their working capital.

“There’s a huge gap in the market for the micro-merchants that just can’t get those same features they’d want from an Amex card, or from the cards offered by digital only neobanks that are typically offered to larger firms,” Voiles said.