Spendesk becomes the 26th French unicorn after a fundraising of 100 million euros

Soon a new French unicorn per day? Not quite, but the rhythm is very intense right now for Franch Tech start-ups. Thanks to a new fundraising of 100 million euros, Spendesk becomes the 26th French unicorn.

A new French start-up in the unicorn club

Since the start of 2022, 5 young French startups (PayFit, Ankorstore, Qonto, Exotec and now Spendesk) have joined the closed circle of unicorns, these companies valued at more than a billion dollars. On the same trend as in 2021, French Tech is in great shape and fundraising is on the rise. BackMarket (14th French unicorn) has even become the most valued French start-up, thanks to a fundraising of 450 million euros carried out a few days ago.

This time it’s Spendesk’s turn, an eFounders start-up, to raise funds that allows it to reach the rank of “unicorn”. By the way, eFounders now has 2 unicorns to its credit with Aircall and Spendesk.

Spendesk was created in 2016. Jordane Giuly, Guilhem Bellion and Rodolphe Ardant are the three co-founders behind the project. Simply put, the startup offers an all-in-one expense management platform business for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. Initially focused on virtual bank cards for online payments, the company has expanded its product offering to tackle everything related to business spending.

Spendesk, the expense management solution “7 in 1”

Today, Spendesk customers can order cards for their employees, associates can also use the platform to pay outstanding bills, complete expense reports, manage budgets and generate reports. Concretely, Spendesk wishes simplify the accounting function within companies, and make money flow more freely. The start-up defines its tool as a “7 in 1 expense management solution”.

In the European market, Spendesk has serious competitors. We think of Pleo, which recently reached a valuation of 4.7 billion dollars (4.15 billion euros), and Soldo, another strong competitor which recently raised 180 million dollars (160 million euros). ). In the USA, other players like Brex and Ramp dominate the market.

However, Spendesk claims not to have the same positioning as American start-ups. Rodolphe Ardant, co-founder and CEO of Spendesk, says that “In the US market, we shouldn’t talk about the expense management industry, it’s more like the corporate card industry”. It is true that European business culture is a culture of debit, no credit like in the US.