A/R Fintech Startup Kolleno Earns $5.4MM in Seed Funding

Kolleno, a London-based financial technology startup specializing in accounts receivable management for small and medium-sized enterprises, attracted £4 million ($5.4 million) in seed funding led by Eurazeo and Stride.VC, with participation from Euler Hermes, HubSpot and several angel investors, including Michael Pennington, Mark Ransford and Will Neale.

Founded in 2020 by Dimitri Raziev (CEO) and Ron Danenberg (CTO), Kolleno simplifies B2B credit control and collections for SMEs by automating the management of receivables onto a single platform. In fewer than 18 months of operation, the startup has already acquired customers across several markets in Europe, the UK, the United States, Canada and South Africa.  

The platform does cash reconciliation, prioritizes workflow and provides tailored collection strategies by advising communication channels using artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. The platform’s customers are approached via omnichannel, in-app communication methods, including email, SMS and phone calls.

Moreover, the platform has a payment portal, which is accessible straight from emails and texts received by customers. The dashboard of the portal provides data insights and credit analysis with the goal of helping to mitigate risks and reduce bad debts.

Kolleno has already processed more than 170,000 invoices across the United States, Canada, South Africa, the UK and Europe since it launched.

“Previously, businesses had to hire credit control specialists or give extra tasks to existing members of their team to manually monitor the payment dynamics of customers. An employee had to identify late payers, then prioritize, contact and follow up with individual clients to ensure late payments were received. This was not only time-consuming, but also stressful for business owners and often prone to errors,” Raziev said. “Kolleno has been designed to alleviate these challenges by automating manual legacy processes to eliminate errors, ensure that businesses get paid faster and improve cash flows for our clients, some of whom have reported greater than 90% recovery using our platform.”

In addition to automating and streamlining processes, Kolleno’s software offers open API integration with ERP and software solutions, including Xero, QuickBooks and Clio. The software is also equipped with machine learning technology capable of automating and optimizing the timing, method and delivery of client communications and offers a variety of efficiency-improving features, such as an actions board and payments portal to simplify follow-up and receipt of payments.  

“The technology has reached a level where it is able to remove repetitive tasks from employees and perform them faster and more accurately, freeing up time for staff to focus on higher value-added activities and speeding up the sales-to-cash time frame. We are excited to build something that saves time and money for businesses” Danenberg said.

“The B2B payments market is far bigger than the B2C. However, the level of digitalization in the B2B sector is lagging behind. That is why we are excited to invest in Kolleno. I firmly believe that the biggest opportunities in the B2B payments sector are yet to come.”Chloé Giard, investment director at Eurazeo, said.

As Kolleno continues to build, it will use its initial seed funding to scale its capabilities and offerings. To assist with these efforts, the company recruited Djibrane Larrabure as chief of staff and onboarded a team of nearly 10 professionals to expand its product, marketing, sales and partnership offerings.