Singapore’s Payments Startup Spenmo Closes $34M Series A Round

Spending startup Spenmo has raised $34 million in an oversubscribed funding round led by Insight Partners that was also the largest Series A closed for a Y Combinator-backed company in Southeast Asia (SEA).

Additional backers included Salesforce Ventures, Lee Fixel’s Addition, Alpha JWC, Global Founders’ Capital, Broadhaven, Operator Partners and Commerce Ventures.

Non-institutional investors were Plaid Founder William Hockey, former Sales.com executive Andy Cohen, Stripe Indonesia head Ongki Kurniawan, Snapdeal Founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, FiveStars Founder Matt Doka and Sendbird Founder John Kim.

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Spenmo offers smart corporate cards and automated bill payments to help businesses make payments, track expenses and categorize spending while closing the books in 90% less time, according to a press release on Wednesday (Sept. 22).

The fresh infusion of capital will be used to expand the company’s market share to include a larger percentage of the 20-plus million small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and mid-market firms in Southeast Asia that largely depend on manual processes. “Our space has typically been thought of as a back-office function, but finance and accounts payable is a critical part of running a business,” said Mohandass Kalaichelvan, CEO and founder of Spenmo.

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“Finance teams who implement our software gain back man-hours. On average, they save over 50 hours and $10,000 every month. Our goal is to give back 10 billion man-hours annually to finance teams across the region,” Kalaichelvan said.

Launched last year in Singapore, the startup has already grown throughout SEA in several verticals, including high-growth startups and accounting firms.

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Rebecca Liu-Doyle, principal at Insight Partners, said the payments space is “ripe for disruption,” particularly in the largely undiscovered SEA region. As part of the funding round, Liu-Doyle is joining the Spenmo board of directors.