Pliant secures $40M Series B funding to expand to the US

Berlin-based fintech Pliant has secured a $40M Series B round, bringing its total funding to over $100M. The investment aims to accelerate Pliant’s expansion into the US market. The round was co-led by Illuminate Financial and Speedinvest, with participation from existing investors PayPal Ventures and Motive Ventures.​

Pliant specializes in B2B payment solutions, offering a platform that combines physical and virtual credit cards with automation tools to streamline corporate spending. Its cards-as-a-service (CaaS) model enables businesses to launch their own branded credit card programs, enhancing customer retention and providing new revenue streams. The platform has gained traction in industries such as travel, fleet management, and banking. Pliant’s expansion into the U.S. is part of its strategy to tap into the large and underserved B2B payments market.​

The Series B funding will support Pliant’s US market entry, including the establishment of a local team and infrastructure. The company plans to hire additional talent and expand its partner network to facilitate growth. Recent collaborations, such as the partnership with Commerzbank, have helped Pliant reach more customers and support a wider range of payment use cases.​

“We are proud to have reached this milestone and grateful for the continued support of our investors. We have proven that our platform delivers real value at scale. With a strong foundation in Europe, we are ready to bring our solution to the U.S. market,” said Malte Rau, CEO and co-founder of Pliant.​

Tom Filip Lesche, Partner at Speedinvest, commented: “Pliant is not just building a 10x better credit card product – they’re building the future infrastructure of corporate payments. We’ve been following Malte, Fabian, and their team for some time and I can't think of another team that has consistently outperformed their ambitious plans year after year.

"We’re now proud to co-lead this Series B and partner with such an exceptional group on their journey to become a defining European fintech success story.”​

Konstantin Koenig, Principal at Illuminate Financial, added: “B2B payments remain one of the most underserved and inefficient areas in global finance – still hindered by manual processes, opaque infrastructure, and slow settlement cycles. Pliant’s platform brings a much-needed layer of automation, flexibility, and intelligence to corporate payments, unlocking real value for modern businesses.”​