Plooto Raises $20M to Expand Payments Automation Platform

Payments automation platform Plooto has raised $20 million in Series B funding.

The company said in a Tuesday (Dec. 13) press release that it will use the new capital to grow its customer base, add new product lines, ramp up hiring and customize its offering for more businesses.

“Our vision, since inception, has been to enable the advancement of entrepreneurs to reach their full potential without being bogged down by cumbersome and inefficient financial processes,” Plooto CEO and Co-founder Hamed Abbasi said in the release. “By expanding our platform’s automation, workflows and payment capabilities, Plooto has become the mission control for managing cashflow end-to-end.”

Plooto provides end-to-end accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) automation software for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). About 8,500 finance teams, accountants and bookkeepers use the company’s cloud-based solutions, according to the press release.

The company said in the release that small businesses make significant contributions to the economy—accounting for 40% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Canada and 43.5% of that of the United States—but struggle with cashflow management.

“Beyond their economic contributions, entrepreneurs and SMBs, in general, have largely shaped our modern world and our mission is to see more of them succeed,” Plooto Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Serguei Kloubkov said in the release.

Plooto’s latest funding round follows its early 2021 Series A round in which the company raised $6.34 million, according to the press release.

The latest round was led by Centana Growth Partners and had participation from existing investors Fintop Capital and Luge Capital, the release said.

“Plooto is the exact kind of forward-thinking company that we at Centana Growth look for in a partner,” Ben Cukier, partner at Centana Growth Partners, said in the release. “They solve a real problem for their customers in an innovative way.”

PYMNTS research has found that payments digitization could go a long way toward reducing delays and minimizing errors by delegating day-to-day processes, such as payables, invoice processing and record-keeping, to artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions.

This could significantly reduce the capacity for human error and accelerate complex calculations that tend to be tedious and time-consuming for human accountants, according to the “AP Automation Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and Beanworks collaboration.

By combining AR and AP in a single solution and looping in both the buyer and the supplier to a unified portal, the tool can also mitigate risk because it gains visibility into the entire B2B payment lifecycle, Abbasi of Plooto told PYMNTS in an interview posted in April 2021.

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