Pennylane has raised €40M from Sequoia Capital and DST Global, reflecting very strong growth over the last two years. The company has multiplied by 40 the number of VSE-SMEs on its platform in 24 months thanks to the adoption of the tool by more than 2,000 accounting firms who have brought their clients on board.
Pennylane stands out for its business model: the fintech charges accounting firms for its accounting production tool, while generating additional revenue when firms equip their clients with the all-in-one management tool including an account. pro.
These funds raised will allow Pennylane to accelerate the development of its various modules, to invest massively in artificial intelligence for accountants and to adopt an external growth strategy with companies with complementary know-how.
Becoming the driving force behind the evolution of accounting
Since its creation in 2020, Pennylane has established itself as a key player in the evolution of the sector, committed to promoting the role of accountants rather than advocating total automation of accounting. Convinced that business leaders are looking for sound advice and a trusted partner, Pennylane has quickly won the support of accounting professionals thanks to three major advantages:
- First of all, the considerable time savings it offers, from capturing flows and invoices to preparing financial statements, thus freeing accountants from time-consuming tasks.
- Then, the significant increase in visibility of its finances and the peace of mind resulting from the use of Pennylane by the firms' corporate clients.
- Finally, Pennylane allows the accountant to fully play his role as a trusted third party to managers.
Technology, a key factor in the recognition and growth of the chartered accountant profession.
Pennylane already allows accounting professionals to generate significant productivity gains, but also to ensure the reliability of data collected in real time. Accounting firms thus save on average 15% of time per file thanks to automation, from data recovery to tax declarations through automation of lettering.
The company now wants to go even further by bringing all the innovations enabled by AI to accounting professionals, to enable them to focus more on the analysis and restitution of high value-added data.
A chatbot specific to the accounting field will be set up, allowing rapid and efficient restitution of customer management data. At the same time, an opportunity center is envisaged to proactively detect the specific advice needs of each client, thus promoting more targeted and relevant accounting action. In addition, Pennylane wants to help employees accustomed to data entry move toward support and reporting missions, by “augmenting” them using artificial intelligence.
“This fundraising comes at a time when Pennylane is experiencing exceptional growth, multiplying the number of its customers 40-fold in two years. We were not looking for funding, but we wanted to seize the opportunity again to go even faster. It indeed appears essential that accountants be equipped with a complete tool in order to be armed against neobanks and online accounting solutions which claim to purely and simply replace an entire profession. One year after the last round of funding, this fundraising will allow us to further support accounting firms in their transition to automation and the adoption of new technologies. This includes reorienting their missions towards consulting, updating the skills of their employees, and attracting young talents. We also plan to expand the capabilities of our platform by adopting an external growth strategy over the next 5 years,”
said Arthur Waller, CEO and co-founder of Pennylane.
Luciana Lixandru, Partner at Sequoia, said: "Pennylane solves an important problem for over 120,000 SMEs and over 2,000 accounting firms, by giving businesses their financial information in real time and their trusted third party, their accountants, a smarter, more productive way of working. We continue to be impressed by Pennylane's outstanding technical team, their drive to innovate and their constant focus on their customers. We look forward to "Many accounting firms and SMEs across Europe will benefit from this financial Operating System as Pennylane expands this year ."
“Accountants play an important role in the economy, and a strong, effective relationship between businesses and their accountants is a key component of effective business management,”
said Tom Stafford, co-founder and managing partner of DST Global . “The Pennylane platform is already making accountants and businesses more efficient – and there is more to come as the product develops, including new artificial intelligence features. We are excited to continue our partnership with the Pennylane team”.
