Payroll automation provider Pento pockets $35 million

Copenhagen’s real-time automated payroll software platform Pento has raised $35 million in a Series B round co-led by investment powerhouse Tiger Global and Avid Ventures. Pento’s fresh payout is expected to power product development, partner integrations, and prolonged expansion into new European posts. The company closed a Series A round just shy of six months ago, and brings the total funding to date to a respectable $53.4 million.

Founded in 2017 by Emil Hagbarth Rasmussen and Jonas Bøgh Larsen, when it comes to the often painful process of payroll, Pento passes on the error-prone process of plodding through spreadsheets, pouring over PDFs, and proofing emails, etc., and provides employers with a set of tools, real-time calculations, and overall improved transparency to get the job done.

So painful can the process be that the procedure for outsourcing payroll is a $6 billion market in Europe, and is projected to prosper at an annual rate of 4.4 percent. Pento proposes that in the UK alone, there are potentially 20,000 SMEs and 4,000 mid-market proprietors that could prosper from their provisions.

The startup offers clients including Starling Bank, Pleo, Cuvva, and Honest Burgers, a host of time-saving features with real-time payroll calculations, automated payments, HMRC integration, salary templates, and payslip distributions, to name a few, all within a 100% GDPR compliant platform.

Adding to the savings in both time and money, Pento seamlessly integrates with a number of popular existing accounting software, HR products, and pension providers including Personio, Hibob, and BambooHR. Going the extra mile, and perhaps signaling ambitions greater than just payroll(?) Pento is beta testing an open API that allows clients to build any number of custom integrations into their workflows including automation functions for time tracking and shift planning.

Pento’s $35 million Series B round was co-led by Tiger Global and Avid Ventures and saw participation from existing investors General Catalyst, Seedcamp, and Latitude.

“What Jonas, Emil, and the team at Pento are doing is not only revolutionizing how businesses pay their staff; it is also building the infrastructure upon which the future of employee compensation will be based,” commented Avid Ventures’ Addie Lerner. “Their approach to thoughtful automation, their focus on data protection and security, and their understanding of the nuances and pain points of this space are what sets them apart.”