Japan’s SBI Investment has led a $28 million Series A round in the German corporate card platform Pliant.
The corporate card platform, which is based in Berlin, provides companies with the opportunity to issue physical, virtual, and disposable credit cards. These maps are integrated into the software for subsequent enterprise resource planning.
Pliant also serves other fintech firms with a built-in card platform that is available to the company’s clients. Recently, the company has established cooperation with Candis, an account management software firm, and Circula, a software provider for paying travel expenses and employee benefits.
In addition to SBI, existing investors from the previous preliminary and seed rounds of Plain also participated in the Series A financing round, among them Alstin Capital of Karsten Maschmeyer, Finleap founder Ramin Nirumand through Motive Ventures, and Neosfer, an early-stage fund of Commerzbank. The total amount of investments that the corporate card platform managed to attract is $ 48 million.
At present, when the situation in the global economy is not the best, investments are of particular importance for startups. EY Startup Barometer reports that by the end of 2022, the volume of venture capital investments in start-up companies based in Germany decreased by 43% compared to the indicator recorded a year earlier.
The Series A round, which attracted investments for Pliant, is the largest fintech financing in Germany since the beginning of 2023.
Ramin Nirumand, the partner at Motive Partners, stated that the significant growth during the year, combined with the high level of modularity of the product suite, are the reasons that Pliant was able to attract a significant volume of financing of the A series on the background of the current market conditions, which do not contribute to such results.
As we have reported earlier, Taurus Raises $65 Million to Grow Digital Asset Platform.