PayPal-Backed Mendel Raises $35 Million to Expand Spend and Travel Management Platform

Mendel raised $35 million in a Series B funding round to expand the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered capabilities of its enterprise spend and travel management platform and to extend the platform into additional Latin American countries.

“This round allows us to scale our AI capabilities and continue transforming how companies manage payments, expenses and travel — helping them operate more efficiently while reducing costs and complexity,” Mendel Co-Founder and Co-CEO Alan Karpovsky said in a Thursday (March 27) press release.

Mendel’s platform integrates expense management, payments and corporate travel; charges recurring software-as-a-service (SaaS) fees; and operates in Mexico and Argentina, according to the release.

With the new capital, the company will expand the platform’s AI-driven spend management capabilities; scale its team in product development, go-to-market execution and AI research; and extend its operations into Chile, Colombia and Peru in 2025 and Brazil in 2026, the release said.

Mendel’s latest funding round was led by Base10 Partners with participation from PayPal Ventures, per the release.

“Mendel is revolutionizing corporate spend management in Latin America by delivering an enterprise-grade, AI-first platform that eliminates inefficiencies and modernizes the financial stack for businesses,” Jason Kong, partner at Base10 Partners, said in the release.

PayPal Ventures Partner Ian Cox said in the release: “Latin America is one of the most dynamic FinTech markets in the world, yet enterprise spend management remains underserved. Mendel’s combination of software-first pricing, deep localization and AI-driven automation makes them uniquely positioned to lead this space.”

Mendel launched its corporate spend management platform in Mexico and raised $35 million in a Series A in 2021 and raised $60 million in another funding round in November 2022. The company said at the time of the second funding round that it was working to accelerate the development of its platform in the Mexican market.

Latin America has emerged as a leader in digital payments in recent years, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and Galileo collaboration, “Promising Payments: Digital Payments Gain Ground in Latin America.”

The report found that the digital banking revolution is reshaping shopping behaviors in the region, with consumers leveraging constant internet connectivity to enhance their purchasing experiences.