- London fintech Payhawk has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by US investor QED.
- The payments and expense management platform claims to have grown 10x in 2020.
- Payhawk plans to double its headcount to more than 64 people by the end of the year.
- See more stories on Insider's business page .
London fintech Payhawk has raised $20 million in a round led by US fund QED Investors.
The payments and expense management platform claims to have grown 10 times over last year due to a surge in demand from the pandemic. Payhawk, which was founded in 2018, claims it improves the efficiency of a company's expenses as it brings both payments and invoicing into the one system.
"The COVID-19 crisis has brought an acceleration of trends, particularly around remote employees and digitization in general," Payhawk CEO Hristo Borisov told Insider in an interview. "We are in a very crowded market but we have a vision which is actually visionary where we can move beyond neo-banks and traditional providers to offer more than that."
Borisov said the company had "gained traction" with businesses due to the "depth of features never seen in neo-banks." He cited the ability the use the company's software in "any enterprise system out there" as a major selling point.
Existing investor Earlybird Digital East, which led Payhawk's $3.6 million seed round in March 2020, is also contributing fresh capital. QED Investors, a backer of fintech unicorns like Klarna and Nubank, will join Payhawk's board.
Funding conversations began in February with a number of interested investors. As of January, Payhawk had felt that a fundraise was unnecessary but high levels of inbound interest led to a shift in thinking, Borisov said.
The Payhawk chief said his platform "saves businesses time and money in a crisis" and that he was "definitely eyeing the US" as a new market. Borisov also plans to double its headcount to more than 64 people by the end of this year.
"We are delighted to invest in Payhawk. The company is growing at a phenomenal rate," Yusuf Ozdalga partner at QED Investors said. " The company's product fundamentals are exceptionally strong, and industry trends are working in the company's favour too. As budgets are more typically managed online by remote teams, there is unprecedented demand for cost-effective finance solutions."
Via PakApNews