Payroll automation company Pento has raised £26 million in a Series B round of funding.
The round comes just six months after closing its Series A and follows consecutive record-breaking months of growth.
The round is co-led by new investor Tiger Global and existing investor Avid Ventures. Existing investors General Catalyst, Seedcamp and Latitude also participated in the round.
Founded by Jonas Bøgh Larsen and Emil Hagbarth Rasmussen in 2017, Pento says it frees companies, their payroll teams and employees from onerous outsourcing and outdated software.
Instead of relying on spreadsheets, PDFs, emails and countless manual checks, Pento’s SaaS platform fully automates the process from start to end, in real-time, for a set monthly fee. It claims to reduce the amount of time customers spend on payroll by up to 80%.
Since the start of 2021, Pento has experienced record-breaking growth, leading to a 10x increase in revenue. The company has also onboarded major customers, including Starling Bank.
Pento has partnerships and integrations with existing accounting software, HR products and pension providers, such as Personio, Hibob and BambooHR.
It has also developed an open payroll API – currently in beta – which will allow any business to build custom integrations to automate more of their workflows, such as time-tracking or shift planning, and will allow employees to share pay and compensation data with third-party apps and services to validate their income to credit agencies, as well as other financial and HR organisations.
“Our incredible growth over the past 12 months is a testament to the team and the product we’ve built, as well as the investors who have supported our vision,” said CEO Larsen.
“We’re thrilled that this group of incredible investors now includes Tiger Global and an even deeper commitment by Avid Ventures. We built Pento having seen first-hand just how broken the current payroll processes are, and our continued success showcases just how strongly forward-thinking companies are asking for tools to fix this.”
The latest round brings the company’s total funding to $53.4m. Funds will be used for product development, service expansion, partner integrations, and expansion into new European countries.
John Mountain, CIO at Starling Bank, said: “As a technology-led bank we understand acutely the impact that the right digital tools can have on a business, particularly when it comes to financial services and employee compensation.
“We also know how challenging it can be to offer such services in a way that works seamlessly and which offers the user experience that our staff expect today. Pento has developed a platform that ticks all the boxes and then some.
“We have been impressed with its well-designed UI and seamless integration with our other workplace tools, and are looking forward to continuing our work together.”