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CleverCards, a configurable payments startup, raises $8.6 million
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A startup that uses technology to stop employees from abusing company expenses just raised 8 million euros ($8.6 million) in funding from investors, defying a slump in investment in the financial technology sector.
CleverCards, a Dublin-based company, uses a digital platform linked to configurable spending cards to give companies control over how their employees use their company payment cards.
According to a Global survey 2016 of human resources firm Robert Half’s chief financial officers, employees submitted several requests for improper expense reports, including a dog spa, taxidermy services, dance lessons, a side of beef and even a welder.
These requests, while strange, reflect a harsh reality for many companies when it comes to business expenses: Sometimes they can’t trust employees’ judgment.
CleverCards CEO Kealan Lennon says his platform aims to address exactly that.
Instead of giving employees company credit cards that they can use to make purchases anywhere in the world, CleverCards allows companies to provide prepaid cards that can be configured to only be used by certain staff members and block certain transactions if they are deemed to be not appropriate.
“Companies want to make sure it’s the right employee who receives the card and that it’s only used for certain purposes,” Lennon told CNBC in an interview.
“It’s financial control,” he added. “The idea of a configurable payment platform had never been done before. And by doing it digitally, that allowed customers to come and say, I want to be able to do this at the push of a button.”
CleverCards told CNBC exclusively on Friday that it has raised new funds in an investment round led by strategic investor Pluxee. With this new investment, the total raised so far by CleverCards exceeds 28 million euros.
Pluxee is an employee benefits and voucher platform born from French restaurant company Sodexo earlier this year.
It is listed on the French stock exchange Euronext with a valuation of 4 billion euros.
Taking business from Adyen, Stripe
Founded in 2019, CleverCards has signed up over 10,000 businesses as customers. Its clients include eBay, PaddyPower, Betfair, Accenture, Microsoft and Apple.
In addition to these businesses, CleverCard also collaborates with public sector organizations.
In 2022, CleverCards worked with the UK Government to help release social care payments to people using smart meters who usually pay their bills by direct debit but have been forced to seek further financial help due to the increase in fuel prices. The cards could only be used to pay bills on the websites of selected utility companies.
According to Lennon, CleverCards used artificial intelligence to conduct identity verification checks on recipients, helping to avoid fraud.
Lennon said the CleverCards funding round stood out in what has been a brutal market for deal-making and fundraising in fintech.
“It’s a tough environment,” he said. “In the current market impasse, it has been very impressive to raise money because no one is raising capital.”
He said CleverCards is increasingly taking business away from payments technology giants like Adyen and Stripe.
“It was remarkable in that, as a smaller company, we looked at the Stripes and the Adyens and moved on,” he said, adding that, now, “we have won business against them.”
CleverCards will use the new funds to expand its business, broaden its products and explore broader opportunities, it said.
In addition to the fundraising, CleverCards has appointed five new non-executive directors with experience in payments technology to its board.
They include industry veterans Patrick Waldron, Donal Daly, Marc Frappier, Garry Lyons and Viktoria Otero del Val.