Parisian fintech Pennylane raises €40M at €1B valuation

Pennylane, a Parisian fintech startup, has announced the raise of €40 million in a Series C round that drew the support of existing investors Sequoia Capital and DST Global and sees the company become France’s newly minted unicorn.

True to their accuracy in accounting, Pennylane’s newest funding round arrives like clockwork, with the company steadily announcing ever-larger rounds almost to the day, annually.

Founded in 2020, Pennylane aims to become the defacto financial management and accounting platform for startups, SMEs, and their accountants. The offer centralises companywide financial data and provides up-to-the-minute data to help drive decisions, ultimately freeing up accountants to focus more on a consultancy role, rather than data chaser.

According to the company, in the past two years alone, the number of VSE’s and SME’s using its services has increased by a factor of 40x. Pennylane points to the adoption of its services by some 2,000+ accountancy firms, which have then subsequently onboarded their clients.

While freeing up accountant’s time, the company also enables the enablement of significant productivity gains, noting that accounting firms can save an average of 15 per cent of time per case by using automated processes, from data recovery to tax returns and automated lettering.

Looking down the road, and as to be expected, Pennylane is looking to leverage the power of AI and give accountants ever smarter tools and methods of working.

The company is currently working on chatbot and automated assistant technology implementations that are specialised in the field of accountancy.

Pennylane CEO and co-founder Arthur Waller shared:

"This fund-raise comes at a time of exceptional growth for Pennylane, which has seen the number of its customers increase 40-fold in two years. Although not actively seeking financing, we’re excited to seize this opportunity to move even faster. 

“It's essential for accountants to have access to a comprehensive tool that enables them to compete with neo-banks and online accounting solutions, some of whom claim they will replace the entire profession.

"At Pennylane we want to support accounts to shift the focus of their mission towards consulting, updating employees' skills and attracting younger talent. We also plan to broaden the capabilities of our platform by adopting an external growth strategy over the next 5 years.”

Sequoia’s Lucian Lixandru added:

"Pennylane solves a meaningful problem for more than 120,000 SMBs and over 2000 accountancy firms, giving businesses their financial information in real time and their trusted accountants a smarter, more productive way of working. 

“We continue to be impressed by this world-class technical team, their drive to innovate, and their relentless focus on their customers. We expect to see many more SMBs and accountancy firms across Europe benefit from this financial OS as Pennylane expands this year."

Lead image: Pennylane CEO and co-founder Arthur Waller. Photo: Uncredited.