Spendesk becomes the 26th French unicorn

The company has grown rapidly since its inception, saying it has “more than doubled its turnover” in the past two years, with 3,500 customers today.

And 26! The French nugget Spendesk has become a “unicorn” – the name given to a former start-up worth more than a billion dollars – after a new fundraising of 100 million euros, it announced on Tuesday 18 January.

Spendesk offers payment management solutions to businesses. This is the fifth former French start-up to declare itself “unicorn” since the beginning of the year, after Exotec (order preparation robots), Qonto (corporate payments), Ankorstore (marketplace for merchants self-employed), and Payfit (payroll management).

The French herd of “unicorns” now has 26 specimens, according to the count of the State Secretariat for Digital.

On Monday, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron welcomed the 25th unicorn, the robot manufacturer Exotec, in a video posted on Twitter.

“We are there!” he greeted.

“It’s the achievement of the goal we set in September 2019 when we only had a handful. We were told that it was impossible and that the start-up nation, as many have said , it was windy,” defended the head of state.

“They create hundreds of thousands of jobs” and “serve our technological sovereignty”, he insisted, a notion that has become one of his favorite arguments.

The president also announced “a new target of ten tech giants by 2030 at European level” and promises to achieve this “new announcements in the coming weeks as part of the French EU presidency”.

A turnover “more than doubled” in two years

Spendesk had already raised 100 million euros last June.

The company has grown rapidly since its inception, saying it has “more than doubled its turnover” in the past two years, with 3,500 customers today.

Its software, for companies with 30 to 1,000 employees, allows them to manage the entire cycle of professional expenses, from their authorization to their payment by issuing a virtual credit card or a refund, including budgeting and accounting recording.

The funds raised will be used to “invest heavily in increasing the workforce”, with 300 recruitments planned for 2022 to reach 700 positions by the end of the year, the company said.

The fundraising operation was led by Tiger Global, an American investment fund, with other historical shareholder funds of Spendesk.

Tiger Global was also the fund that last week led the giant fundraising (486 million euros) of Qonto, another French payment nugget whose business sectors partially overlap those of Spendesk.

“Tiger Global is a passive investor”, which “does not take part in the governance of its portfolio companies”, Spendesk chief executive Rodolphe Ardant told AFP.

There is therefore no “conflict of interest”, he added.

The French “unicorns” were still only a handful three years ago, but the growth of the herd has accelerated in recent months, with fundraising operations increasingly important and close together.

In terms of money raised, French start-ups were third in Europe in 2021, with 11.6 billion euros raised from investors, compared to 16.21 billion in Germany, and 32.36 billion in the United Kingdom, according to an EY barometer published on Sunday.