Bulgaria’s first unicorn Payhawk, a fintech startup that offers spend management software, announced on Monday that it has launched its services in Lithuania and opened a local office in Vilnius.
The startup says it is looking to engage a team of financial specialists to help accelerate product development after recently obtaining an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the Bank of Lithuania.
“Business spend, reinvented”
Founded in 2018 by Hristo Borisov and Boyko Karadzhov, and later joined by Konstantin Dzhengozov, Payhawk is a fintech startup that combines expense management, payments and invoice management in one solution and works as a one-stop-shop for finance teams.
According to the company, finance teams still conduct a considerable amount of manual work due to various disconnected tools for cards, payments, invoicing, and expenditure management. Payhawk claims to reduce this by combining those key elements in a single platform.
With the addition of Lithuania, Payhawk now serves clients in over 32 countries and offers businesses across Europe, the UK and the US a single global solution.
The company has offices in London, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Sofia, New York, and now Vilnius, and its customer base includes well-known names such as LuxAir and Babbel.
Saulius Žlabys, MD at Payhawk Lithuania, says, “We have been engaging in conversations with a significant number of Lithuanian businesses that are looking to optimise spend and make their finance teams more efficient.”
“We’ve always considered Lithuania an important country for us to operate in, and we hope our local presence will help us bring the benefits of Payhawk to more businesses in the Baltics.”
EMI licence to help develop new features
Payhawk was just granted an EMI licence by the Bank of Lithuania. According to co-founder Hristo Borisov, the new licence will accelerate the development of new features of the Payhawk platform.
Borisov says, “We chose to pursue a licence from the Bank of Lithuania because of their commitment to proactively support innovative financial companies like us. The licence will help us bring innovation to our customers; over the next year, we plan to release new features to help our customers better manage even more types of spending in even more global currencies.”
Payhawk is looking for experienced finance, payment operations, and risk assessment employees to work at their new Vilnius office.
Borisov adds, “Our company values include supporting flat hierarchies, taking ownership and responsibility, seeking and providing feedback, managing constructive critique, and speaking our minds.”
“We understand that the best ideas don’t all come from the same place, so we encourage diversity and inclusion in all work areas.”
Elijus Čivilis, General Manager at Invest Lithuania, believes Payhawk to be a “great” addition to the fintech landscape in Lithuania.
Čivilis says, “It is great to see that Vilnius is not only creating unicorns but also attracting them. I’m sure that in Lithuania, Payhawk will find the right talent and support to continue its successful growth.”
