On average, Agicap clients manage 15 different bank accounts. So Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) working for these companies sometimes struggle to ensure that there is enough money in the right bank account to pay employees and suppliers across different subsidiaries, countries and currencies. is
That is why they also approach. Agicap Centralizing cash related data and forecasting future cash positions. The Lyon-based startup just raised a Series C funding round of €45 million (about $48 million at current exchange rates) from a single investor, AVP, the VC firm formerly known as Axa Venture Partners. .
The fintech startup previously raised $100 million in 2021, right in the middle of the digital funding frenzy surrounding the pandemic. At that time, the company reached €415 million (or about $450 million at current exchange rates). The value of the business has since increased “significantly”, per Agicap, although it is not disclosing how much.
“We’re not disclosing the exact valuation, but we’ve been able to increase it substantially from 2021,” co-founder and CEO Sebastien Bait (pictured above) told TechCrunch. Pressing on it, he gave us a hint of a new diagnosis: Les Échos first Reported that Agicap was raising a price of between €700 million and €800 million (or $750 million to $860 million) — and Beyet said: “We’re sticking with that range.”
Narrow focus – the ‘big’ market
Agicap’s relative success comes down to a narrow focus on treasury management software – it’s not trying to do everything at once like most fintech startups.
It is also a relatively untapped market as many companies still rely on Excel and file exports from bank accounts and ERP software. This is evidenced in a recent study conducted by Agecap with 500 European CFOs of midmarket companies. When asked about their tool of choice for managing and forecasting their cash positions, 80% of them answered Excel.
It is also worth noting that Agicap’s main customers are CFOs and the financial sector. And when teams love a product in charge of money, they won’t be unsubscribing anytime soon.
Agicap users can synchronize data from their existing bank accounts, credit institutions and ERP solutions. It then acts as a central repository for viewing everything related to past and future cash flows. But Agicap isn’t just a visualization dashboard. Users can also initiate and schedule transfers directly from its interface.
“We think we’ll be able to use cash management as the foundation of what we call the CFO suite, and provide other tools to CFOs and treasurers,” Beit said.
In this regard, more recently, the startup has added accounts payable and accounts receivable. These features help you get paid faster as you can view pending invoices and push them if customers are late. Likewise, Agicap imports purchase orders so you can pay suppliers on time and use this data for your upcoming budgets.
The startup currently has 8,000 customers, half of which are in France. Most of its remaining customers are spread across other European countries. “We focus on medium-sized companies, with annual revenues ranging from €5 million to €10 million on average,” Bayet said.
“We have already reached a break-even position on a cash basis for this quarter. So we didn’t need to raise any additional funds to continue our growth. But we believe our market is huge. ,” he added.
In addition to hiring new people to find new customers, Agicap plans to use the funding to launch new features around credit management and foreign exchange risk management.
What about offering direct credit products? “We don’t want to be a bank,” Beit said. “In other words, we don’t want to take the financial risk of lending ourselves. We know how to build software, and that’s what we plan to focus on.”
Credit : techcrunch.com
