Pipe Acquires Glean.ai to Add Spend Management Solutions for Small Businesses

Pipe has brought together embedded capital and spend management solutions for small businesses by acquiring Glean.ai.

This acquisition adds Glean.ai’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered spend management offering to Pipe’s embedded financial solutions for software platforms that serve small businesses, Pipe said in a Tuesday (April 15) press release.

“With seamless access to capital and smarter spend insights, we’re enabling sustainable growth, better operational oversight and long-term success for small businesses,” Pipe CEO Luke Voiles said in the release.

Glean.ai’s spend management solution provides small businesses with one-click access to spending trends, billing errors and savings opportunities, according to the release. It also offers real-time, cross-functional budgeting and bill pay tools and, with the help of AI, helps business owners make timely, data-driven decisions.

This solution complements Pipe’s embedded capital and business charge card solution that is delivered to small businesses through the company’s payments and vertical software partners, the release said.

While the Glean.ai product is being integrated into Pipe’s internal processes, it will continue to be available directly from Glean.ai, per the release.

Glean.ai founder and CEO Howard Katzenberg, who will join Pipe, said in the release that the combination represents “a game-changing opportunity for small businesses.”

“They get the support and resources to grow, while Pipe and Glean together create a more powerful, unified platform that accelerates their success,” Katzenberg said.

Pipe’s sweet spot lies with small businesses that see sales of $100,000 to about $1 million on an annualized basis, Voiles told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in October.

In an earlier interview, posted in June, Voiles said that by embedding financing solutions into the point-of-sale (POS) systems and software platforms that business owners rely on to run their daily operations, FinTechs like Pipe can connect small businesses with innovative capital and lending products that would have otherwise remained unattainable.

“It’s a powerful thing to give someone that has never had access to capital, but has an amazing small business … It can be a huge multiplier,” Voiles said.

Voiles added that Pipe is developing a broader suite of financial services.

“What you can do is offer secondary features where capital becomes this security blanket for businesses that’s within the software they use every day,” Voiles said.

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