A French start-up specializing in payment management solutions has just raised 100 million euros. It is the fifth company to declare itself a “unicorn” since the beginning of the year.

French Nugget Spendesk, which provides payment management solutions to companies, has become a “unicorn” (a former start-up worth more than a billion dollars) after a new fundraising of 100 million euros, it said on Tuesday. has announced. Spendesk is the fifth former French start-up to declare itself a “unicorn” since the beginning of the year, after Exotec (order preparation robot), Konto (corporate payments), AncorStore (marketplace for independent merchants) and Payfit (payroll management). .

The French livestock of the “unicorn” now has 26 specimens, according to the State Secretariat’s count for Digital. Spendesk had already raised 100 million euros last June. The company has grown rapidly since its inception, saying it has “more than doubled its business” 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 full cycle of professional expenses, from their authorization to their payment, by issuing a virtual credit card or reimbursement, which includes budgeting and accounting recording. The company said the money raised will be used to “invest heavily in growing the workforce”, with 300 recruits planned for 2022 that will reach 700 positions by the end of the year.

Tiger Global Investment Fund moving forward

The fundraising operation was led by Tiger Global, a US investment fund, with Spendesk’s other historic shareholder fund. Tiger Global was also the fund that led last week’s massive fundraising (486 million euros) of Qonto, another French payments nugget whose business area partially overlaps that of Spendesk.

“Tiger Global is a passive investor”, which “does not participate in the governance of the companies in its portfolio”, indicated Rodolph Ardant, managing director of Spendesk. So there is no “conflict of interest”, he said.

Three years ago there were still only a handful of French “unicorns,” but the growth of these start-ups has accelerated in recent months, with increasingly larger and closer fundraising operations. French start-ups were ranked third in Europe in 2021 in terms of funds raised, according to an EY barometer published on Sunday, with 11.6 billion euros raised from investors, compared with 16.21 billion in Germany and 32.36 billion in the United Kingdom. were euros.