[Funding alert] Corporate expense management startup Volopay raises $29M in Series A round

Volopay, a Singapore-based corporate cards provider and expense management startup, raised $29 million in Series A round as a mix of equity and debt.

The funding round saw participation from JAM Fund, Winklevoss Capital Management, Rapyd Ventures, and Accial Capital, along with fintech veterans such as Jeffrey Cruttenden, CEO of Acorns; Sweta Rau, Founder of White Ventures; Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs; and Jitendra Gupta, Founder and CEO of Jupiter, along with Antler Global and VentureSouq.

The platform will use the funds for the upcoming market launches, building new complementary technologies, and hiring new talent. It will also invest in enhancing its integrations with popular ERPs, HRMs, and CRM software along with leading project management applications.

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Leading the round, Justin Mateen, Founder of Tinder and JAM Fund, expressed high hopes with Volopay.

"I’ve worked closely with Volopay's amazing team since my original investment at the pre-seed stage. Given the accelerating growth of the business, and the team's ability to innovate quickly on the product side with a single stack scalable platform across multiple jurisdictions, it was only natural to triple down and lead the Series A round. I am proud to partner with a leader in this space and to help support Volopay to scale to greater heights,” he said.

Volopay has shown exponential growth since its seed funding. With a 150+ member team spread across Singapore, Australia, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the platform has amassed the likes of Antler, Dathena, CoinDCX, Livspace, MPL, InVideo, and MX Media.

The idea behind Volopay took roots back in 2016 when co-founder Rajith Shaji realised the complexities of managing financial records in big businesses.

“I used to travel around these corridors like Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and I always noticed the difficulty in filing expenses (with the employer) after I came back,” said Rajith. “Secondly, getting access to some of the software of the company, such as the debit card from the finance books, was a big task.”

He added that financial management in many businesses often lack transparency and continue using traditional forms of bookkeeping and reimbursements.

Volopay steps in as a ‘financial control centre’ to manage multi-level financial approvals and spending records. It also facilitates money transfers in both domestic and international currencies, expense reimbursements, and automated accounting. These automated processes, Rajith says, reduce the burden on the financial officers.

Despite the initial challenges due to market regulations, Rajith and his co-founder Rajesh Raiwakar had found validation for their products, especially for the virtual cards, quite early.

“People really loved the idea of using virtual corporate cards instead of going through the troubles of asking for the debit card from the company’s finance managers,” says Rajith. “Employees can purchase software, manage marketing expenses very easily.”

The Y Combinator-backed platform is all set to enter the Indian market by the end of March 2022 after establishing its base in Singapore and Australia. It also plans to extend in the MENA region in the coming days.