Participated · Equity · Mar 2024

PPRO is a London-based fintech that provides digital payment solutions to businesses and banks to scale local payment services through one connection. The company’s platform connects a global network of local payment methods and is used by partners including Stripe, PayPal and J.P. Morgan to accelerate roadmaps, boost conversions and reduce local-payments complexity. On 15 March 2024 PPRO completed a dual-tranche funding round totalling €85m. The funding was provided by new and existing investors. Named investors include Eurazeo, HPE Growth, Sprints, PayPal Ventures, J.P. Morgan, Citi Ventures and funds managed by BlackRock. PPRO says it will use the funds to pursue growth in key markets and further enhance its global network of local payment methods. PPRO offers a set of APIs that e-commerce companies integrate into check-outs to accept local payment methods and currencies, removing the need for customers to build complex integrations. Its platform packages localized gateway, processing and merchant acquirer services and is used by about 100 large global customers, including PayPal, Citi, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, Mollie and Worldpay. The company processed $11 billion in payments in 2020, a 60% increase year‑over‑year, and was valued at over $1 billion after a January funding tranche. PPRO plans to expand its footprint, particularly in Latin America and Asia Pacific, as partners like JPMorgan look to use the platform to broaden payment services and support business banking clients. The business mixes primary and secondary capital in financings, reflecting strategic partnerships with banks and institutional investors. Leadership highlights continued demand for localized payments and mobile wallets as the prevailing consumer trend driving growth. PPRO builds payment infrastructure that lets customers accept whatever local payment methods consumers prefer, beyond basic cards, via APIs for gateway, processing and acquirer services. The company focuses solely on payments and partners with large payment players rather than expanding into adjacent banking services. It counts about 100 large global customers, including PayPal, Citi, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, Mollie and Worldpay. PPRO doubled transaction volumes between Q4 2020 and Q4 2019 and is described in coverage as a profitable cross-border payments specialist. The company has been expanding geographically through M&A (it acquired allpago in 2019) and plans to grow further in Asian markets such as Singapore and Indonesia and across Latin America. PPRO is also investing in product areas around compliance and analytics to provide more value to customers. PPRO is a payments platform-as-a-service with operations in Singapore that helps partners accept locally preferred payment methods such as e-wallets, bank transfers, cash, and local cards. The company serves top-tier financial institutions, payment service providers, and their merchants, aiming to remove the complexity of domestic and cross-border payments. PPRO supports payment acceptance in more than 175 markets worldwide. Recently the company closed a USD 50 million financing round, reflecting active investor interest in its business. The round was led by Sprints Capital with participation from Citi Ventures and HPE Growth. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article. PPRO provides a platform that lets merchants accept whatever payment methods are most popular in a given country, covering roughly 140 payment methods today. The company also issues physical and virtual Visa and MasterCard prepaid cards under the VIABUY brand and offers white-label card solutions. PPRO plans to add more countries and payment methods to its platform and has begun a commercial integration with PayPal’s Checkout with Smart Payment Button. The business is already profitable, employs around 200 people, and has raised only about $10.6 million since its 2006 founding. PPRO competes with larger payments companies such as Adyen and focuses on enabling merchants to reach customers in diverse local markets.

Led · Series A · Apr 2022

Planhat is a customer platform that provides insights, manages workflows, and drives customer experience for technology companies. The product is positioned in the Customer Success Platform category and is used by hundreds of modern technology companies worldwide. The company was founded in 2015 and has a team of 100+ people across Europe, North America, South America, and APAC. After seven years of bootstrapping, Planhat secured external capital to accelerate growth. The funding will be used to scale commercial teams, continue category leadership, experiment and expand into new application areas, and invest in its long-term product and technology vision. The company operates from Stockholm, Sweden as Planhat AB.

Participated · Series B · Feb 2022

Payhawk provides a unified B2B payment stack that centralizes payments in a modern interface, issuing dedicated IBANs and offering virtual and physical cards alongside expense software. Customers can upload funds, use cards with rules, budgets and approval workflows, and receive 3% cash back on card payments (capped at the subscription price). The platform supports cash reimbursement, outgoing bank transfers for bills, and integrations with ERP and accounting systems to simplify reconciliation. Payhawk operates in 30 countries and has offices in London, Sofia, Berlin and Barcelona, with plans to open offices in Amsterdam, Paris and New York. Its annualized recurring revenue has been doubling every quarter for the past few quarters, reflecting strong growth. Planned product additions include Oracle NetSuite integration, subscription management, and enhanced budgeting features. Payhawk provides an all-in-one financial management solution with dedicated IBAN accounts, virtual and physical cards, approval workflows, and integrations with ERP and accounting software. The product covers payments, invoice collection, expense reconciliation, employee reimbursements, and bill payments without outgoing bank transfer fees. Payhawk charges no conversion fees for EUR, GBP and USD, applies a 1.99% exchange markup for other currencies, and recently introduced 3% cashback on card payments capped at the subscription price. The company generates revenue primarily from interchange fees and reported a 663% increase in transaction volume since its Series A earlier this year, indicating rapid revenue growth. Payhawk currently has offices in London, Sofia, Berlin and Barcelona and serves customers across 27 European countries, with concentrations in the U.K., Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The company plans to open offices in the U.S., the Netherlands, Australia and Singapore and is working on credit cards and improved cross-border transactions. Payhawk, founded in 2018, provides a one-stop platform that combines tools for payments, invoices and expense management to bridge banks and ERP systems. The company serves finance teams with a single solution across 30 countries. Its product roadmap includes new payment products (including credit cards), support for additional currencies with FX rates, and streamlined cash flow from existing bank accounts to Payhawk. Payhawk plans to accelerate its use of AI and machine learning to introduce smart workflows and reduce manual review and approval. It also intends to triple its marketing and sales team in 2021 to grow presence in the UK, Germany and Spain. Customers named in the articles include LuxAir, Lotto24, Viking Life, ATU, Gtmhub, MacPaw and By Miles. Payhawk provides a paperless corporate card and platform that simplifies and automates expense management for businesses. Its platform enables CFOs and business owners to manage the entire spending lifecycle end-to-end, from employee requests to loading corporate cards, invoice collection, accounting reconciliation, and real-time reporting. Launched in Sofia, Bulgaria, the company serves customers in 14 European countries and has made Berlin its new sales headquarters while investing in a local German market presence. The company is led by CEO Hristo Borisov, CFO Konstantin Djengozov and CTO Boyko Karadzhov. Payhawk closed a €3m seed funding round and intends to use the proceeds to continue expanding operations and its business reach across Europe. Payhawk.io provides an expense management system that issues instant digital and physical debit cards for employees, lets managers set budgets and limits, and enables real-time expense monitoring. The software extracts data from uploaded invoices and delivers structured reports for accountants. Founded in summer 2018, the company officially launched its product in February 2019 and quickly acquired paying customers across three markets. Since launch the seven-person team has signed eleven clients in the UK, Germany and Bulgaria, serving startups (~20 employees) and larger firms up to 150 employees, with pricing starting from €10 per user per month. Payhawk.io runs R&D in Sofia and maintains a sales office in London while supporting Bulgarian currency and a Cyrillic interface. The company targets the UK and Germany and has secured strategic partnerships with Visa and Wirecard following recognition at the Paris Fintech Forum. It plans to use new funding to double the team and develop its UK sales office.

Led · Series E · Jan 2022

Back Market operates an online marketplace focused on professionally refurbished smartphones and electronic devices, offering like-new products with a one-year warranty and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The company emphasizes quality control and aims to improve product reliability to increase consumer confidence in the refurbished sector. It serves more than 6 million customers worldwide and hosts over 1,500 sellers on its platform. Back Market employs about 650 people across four offices in New York, Berlin, Paris, and Bordeaux. The company plans to invest in product quality and a world-class customer experience while expanding its global customer base, with a particular push into the U.S. market. Back Market operates an online marketplace for refurbished smartphones, laptops, tablets, headphones, gaming consoles and other consumer electronics. The company does not refurbish devices itself; instead roughly 1,500 third-party companies list inventory on the platform. Back Market reports about 5 million customers globally and says its overall defective rate sits at roughly 5%, with a defect warranty included on purchases. The startup invests heavily in merchant services, parts sourcing and quality control to improve reliability and consumer trust. It positions itself within the circular economy and emphasizes sustainability as part of its value proposition. Back Market is active in 13 markets including the U.S. and Japan and plans launches in Canada, Greece, Sweden and Slovakia. Back Market runs a marketplace for refurbished smartphones and other electronic devices by partnering with certified third-party sellers rather than refurbishing devices in-house. The platform requires a 12-month warranty for listed products to reassure buyers. It currently works with about 1,000 certified sellers and is live in the U.S., France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the U.K. and Austria. With fresh capital, the company plans to expand its quality-control team and introduce new services around refurbishments, such as sourcing spare parts and implementing test protocols. Management intends to concentrate on core markets rather than rapid country expansion, starting with the U.S., U.K. and Germany. The recent funding will support efforts to capture more of the refurbishment value chain and scale operations. Back Market operates an online marketplace that aggregates over 270 refurbishment factories to sell refurbished smartphones, laptops, game consoles, TVs, headphones, coffee machines and more. The company aims to make refurbishment a mainstream alternative to buying new devices by building a trusted brand and quality assurance across partners. Back Market claims it can manage pricing, fail rates and partner performance by choosing which factories to work with. Over the past three years the platform has generated over $110 million in gross merchandise volume. Its service is live in France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Italy and the company has recently expanded to the U.S. Executives emphasize that many customers are satisfied with devices one or two years old, creating growth opportunity for the refurbishment market. Back Market is a French greentech platform that sells refurbished smartphones, tablets, televisions and other household appliances. It works with more than 130 factories and refurbishing workshops to offer secondhand electronics at a discount. The company says it saves customers 30–50% compared with the price of new products and helps remove over 100 tonnes of electronic waste each year. Launched in 2014 by Thibaud Hug de Larauze, Quentin Le Brouster and Vianney Vaute, Back Market is positioning itself as a trusted third party between refurbishers, manufacturers and distributors. The startup plans to accelerate international expansion, aiming to open in new countries by the end of 2017, and says Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium already account for more than 30% of its business. To support growth and partnerships it intends to double its workforce from 32 by the end of 2017.

Participated · Series C · Sep 2021

Affinity offers a relationship-intelligence CRM that automates data capture from emails, calendars and documents, enriches profiles with proprietary data (revenue, staff size, funding) and scores opportunities to improve meeting and deal-closing rates. The platform is aimed at industries with long-term relationships such as investment banking, private equity, venture capital, consulting and real estate. Affinity has analyzed over 18 trillion emails and 213 million calendar events, drives more than 500,000 new introductions and tracks 450,000 deals per month. The company serves over 1,700 customers in 70 countries, including Bain Capital Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, SoftBank Group, Nike, Qualcomm and Twilio. Affinity currently has about 125 employees and plans to grow to over 200 by next year. It intends to use the new funding to expand sales, marketing and engineering to support new products and customers. Affinity is a relationship-intelligence platform that uses patented technology to structure and analyze millions of data points from emails, calendars and third-party sources. The platform applies artificial intelligence to assess relationship strength and highlight the best paths to warm introductions. It provides companies in financial services, real estate and technology with a holistic, centralized and automatically updated view of their networks without manual upkeep. Affinity intends to use the new funding to continue building and improving its platform. The company is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2014 by Ray Zhou and Shubham. As of this round the company has raised a total of $40.5 million. Affinity offers an investor-focused CRM that searches across calendars, emails, existing CRM tools and third-party data to answer questions like "Who introduced us to the most companies in New York?" or "Who haven’t I called in a month?" The software can automatically update contact information and meetings based on its data searches, reducing time spent on basic data entry. The company has launched a beta signup and raised $13.5 million to build out the toolkit. The financing round was led by 8VC and includes participation from Sway Ventures, Pear Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Western Technology Investment and angel investors. Co-founders Ray Zhou and Shubham Goel began the project while students at Stanford and previously worked on an earlier product known as Robyn in 2014. Joe Lonsdale, Affinity’s chairman and the founder of 8VC, has been involved since the founders' early work and said the product helps 8VC allocate resources and will influence how firms work in the future.