Fintech scale-up Pleo, which offers a simplified expense management tool and smart company cards, has just raised its Series C round totalling $150m (USD). This is the all-time largest Series C raise in Danish history - and one of the biggest Series C rounds in European fintech - 

giving the company a Unicorn valuation of approximately $1.7bn. 

The investment round was co-led by Bain Capital Ventures and Thrive Capital, with contributions from investors who continue to support Pleo, including Creandum, Kinnevik, Founders, Stripes and Seedcamp. 

Keri Gohman, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, will also join Pleo’s board of directors. With more than two decades of experience, Gohman has spent her entire career reinventing financial services and helping organisations solve global challenges. 

This Series C investment comes two years after Pleo’s Series B round, led by Stripes, which saw them raise $56m — previously the largest Series B round raised in Denmark to date. Prior to this, in 2018, Pleo raised its Series A round totalling $16m, which helped expand its solution across Europe. Today, Pleo operates in six markets across Denmark, UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany and Sweden.

Jeppe Rindom, Co-founder and CEO at Pleo, says: 

“We’re thrilled to be working alongside Bain and Thrive, and incredibly thankful to our other investors – Stripes, Kinnevik, Creandum, Founders and Seedcamp – who continue to support our journey. We’re confident the partnerships, new and ongoing, will help us achieve our life-long mission to transform how businesses handle their spending, all while making their people feel valued at work.

Our growth so far is a real testament to all our hard work, but also the 17,000+ customers who place trust in our product every day — it really shows we’re onto something here. Over the past six years, we’ve grown from an acorn of an idea to a growing team of over 330 people across six markets. The future is extremely bright as we gain our Unicorn status.” 

Keri Gohman, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, says:

"The future of work empowers employees with the tools they need to be effective, productive, and successful. Pleo understands this critical shift for modern companies toward employee centricity—providing workers with a fun-to-use spend management app that automatically tracks their corporate spending and generates expense reports, paired with the powerful tools businesses need to create full visibility and management of every penny spent."

Merritt Hummer, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, says:

"BCV invests in founders who aren't afraid to tackle big problems, and Jeppe and Nicco saw a big challenge that employers faced—tracking all corporate spending and reconciling expenses back to the general ledger—and solved it with elegant technology that both employers and employees love.”

"Pleo is well positioned to become the dominant player in small business spend management, an $80B+ opportunity in Europe alone, and will only grow more essential to businesses as the company expands into bill payments in the near future."

Bain Capital Ventures has recently invested in GoCardless. Last month, they also raised $1.3 billion to fund young startups and VC firms. 

Kareem Zaki, General Partner at Thrive Capital, says:

“Pleo has already transformed the way that over 17,000 companies think about managing their expenses, saving them time and lowering costs while increasing transparency.”

"We are excited to partner closely with the Pleo team to help drive their next phase of growth.”

Founded in 2009, Thrive Capital is a venture capital investment firm based in New York that builds and invests in internet, software, and technology-enabled companies.Thrive manages $9 billion in assets and its portfolio includes Gong, Trade Republic and Plaid.

What will Pleo do with this investment?

The funds raised will be used to continue growing Pleo’s already 17,000+ strong customer base as it aims to reach 1 million engaged users by the end of 2025. Pleo will also continue to invest in its team, which currently stands at 330 people, while iterating its product offering, to help both growing and established businesses manage their company spending in a simplified yet efficient way.

In the past year, Pleo has launched various significant product features, including Bills, an invoice management system that removes the hassle from paying invoices, and Reimbursements (as part of Pocket), a centralised hub to keep track of the money owed between employees and the company. 

This investment will see further developments on features such as these as well as deepening their market offerings.