PEX Raises $160 Million to Expand Spend Management Platform

Corporate card/spend management platform PEX has raised $160 million in new funding.

The debt and equity financing will help support product innovation and allow PEX to expand its charge card offering, increase transaction capacity, and widen access to its platform, the company said in a Tuesday (July 28) news release.

“We believe the future of business finance is integrated, intelligent and accessible to companies of every size,” PEX Founder and CEO Toffer Grant said in the release.

“For too long, sophisticated financial tools were reserved for large enterprises. We’re changing that by combining payments, credit, spend management and automation into a single platform that helps businesses operate with greater control and confidence.”

The release notes that several longer-term trends are fueling demand for solutions that combine payments, spend management, credit and financial automation.

For example, millions of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are expected to change ownership in the coming decade as baby boomers retire. In addition, finance leaders are facing growing pressure to improve efficiency and visibility, while also growing with smaller teams.

“PEX believes these shifts create a significant opportunity for businesses to move beyond legacy banking and card products toward software-driven financial operations,” the release said.

“By combining corporate cards, spend management, credit and automation in a single platform, PEX enables finance teams to streamline workflows, strengthen controls and make better decisions in real time.”

The new funding comes as many SMBs seem to be “building a broader payments toolkit,” as PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that most small business owners don’t want “a private banker in miniature,” that report said. They want fewer financial tasks vying for their attention.

It’s why the most important gauge of “concierge finance” won’t be the number of features, support channels or AI tools a provider can offer, but whether customers spend fewer hours tracking down payments, make fewer avoidable cash-flow mistakes and see quicker access to appropriate capital.

“Small business owners right now have access to more tools and technology, and that’s a part of the story for what’s driving their optimism as well. They’re trying to create pathways of opportunity,” Shena Ashley, president, Capital One Insights Center, told PYMNTS at the start of this month.

“A lot of small business owners are operating in a very fragmented financial system today that is becoming a drain on their time and their ability to grow,” she added.