Today, at its bi-annual Grande Finale Day, the Global Startup Awards announced Pleo as Startup of the Year 2020. 

As the largest independent awards for the startup ecosystem, the decision was made after the winners of the regional startup awards were placed against each other to determine who, out of the thousands of nominations and tens of thousands of votes, was to be recognised as global Startup of the Year.

Pleo was made the overall winner through a combination of public voting and jury deliberations, having previously been crowned with both Danish Startup of the Year and Nordic Startup of the Year awards in 2019. The jury was made up of international business leaders, including investors, founders and CEOs. 

Collecting the prize, Pleo CEO and co-founder Jeppe Rindom said: “We’re so proud to be named the Global Startup of the Year, especially when you look at the number of great companies who were in the running. Our mission is to transform how businesses handle their spending. Our growth so far, from an acorn of an idea to over 13,000 customers, shows that we’re onto something. At the same time, this feels like a moment to recognise that we’ve evolved. We’ve been a scrappy startup, we’ve tackled the joys and challenges of scaling. Now, it really feels like we’re moving into a new phase – and that starts with this fantastic award.”

The other finalists for Startup of the Year included ForFarming, a cloud-based farm management software from Turkey, Oval Money from Italy, and YouTrip from Singapore.

Reflecting on the decision, Global Startup Awards jury member and Executive Director of Innovation Centre Denmark Martin Rune Hoxer said: “As a manager you want to reduce the paperwork and free more time to spend on the real content for your team. Pleo provides a simple solution that gives you just that. And I am excited with the product and not least how they have scaled their business.”

Evaluating Pleo’s win, Global Startup Awards CEO & co-founder Kim Balle said: "Being from the Nordics myself, I have closely followed Pleo, who was solving a pain that even I experienced as a company owner. Where Pleo stands out from the competition is not only because of their very high-standard user-friendliness in the product. It is also because they have managed to create a strong and modern brand that makes finances look easy and pleasant.”

Previous winners of the Startup of the Year prize are Turbine (Hungary) and GRAB (Malaysia).