French fintech Pennylane raises $18M from Sequoia for its financial management and accounting platform

French fintech startup Pennylane is a financial management and accounting platform designed for startups/SMEs and their accountants. The company has announced today that it has raised $18M (approx €14.79M) in a fresh round of funding led by Sequoia Capital. 

This is the first French startup that Sequoia has invested in after establishing its team in Europe last year. Some of its portfolio companies include leading fintech platforms such as Stripe, Paypal, and Square.

The news follows Pennylane’s recent Series A fundraising from investors Global Founders Capital and Partech.

Use of the funds

According to Pennylane, it is witnessing outstanding growth as more than 1,000 executives, and 100 accounting firms are using the platform to manage their financial data in a single place. Hence, the raised capital from this round will be used to expand the platform and strengthen its tech, product, and design teams.

Speaking on the development, Arthur Waller, CEO & co-founder of Pennylane says, “We are proud to announce this new funding round with Sequoia, which clearly demonstrates confidence and trust in Pennylane’s business model, and supports our vision: to establish the most efficient Financial Operating System for startups and SMEs in Europe. Pennylane provides a marketplace that enables accountants to use the same tools as their clients, communicating with them and giving both the accountant and the client access to up-to-date company data.”

All-in-one financial management platform

Pennylane was launched in January 2020 by the founders of PriceMatch (acquired by Booking.com in 2015) Arthur Waller, Alexandre Roquoplo, Felix Blossier, and Edouard Mascré. Pennylane uses accounting data to help entrepreneurs manage their day-to-day business.

The fintech claims that for every business, there are too many tools that are not well synchronised with each other, the collaboration with accountants seems outdated, and visibility on activity and cash flows is lacking too. Pennylane thus developed an innovative accountancy service, Pennylane Compta, which restores accounting and management, in particular the use of a platform shared between the accountant and the business manager.

The company markets its product in the form of a monthly subscription which includes both the bookkeeping and the consulting part, as well as the provision of the software.

Since its inception, the startup claims to have generated a revenue of more than $2.4M (approx €2M), hired about 30 accountants and 15 developers, and now supports over more than 500 customers on a daily basis (mostly startups, SMEs, e-commerces, and restaurant owners).

Pennylane’s solutions

The company aims to become the leading Financial Operating System for European SMEs and startups by investing in the development of its all-in-one platform for managers and accountants. The company’s solutions to businesses include:

• Connected: All of the company’s financial data (banking, accounting, supplier invoices, customer invoices, expense reports) are synchronised on a single platform
• Real-time data: Every data is updated in real-time on the platform so business owners can make informed decisions anytime
• Smart: Pennylane makes data actionable to help leaders make the right decisions for their business
• Automated: The platform saves time by replacing manual actions

Besides, Pennylane has recently launched a new solution that centralises all purchasing, sales, and banking transaction data to make it a real management and decision-making tool for company managers. Managers will, of course, have the opportunity to give access to their accountants so they may keep the books.