SMB expenses start-up DiviPay raises $2.3m in round led by ANZ Bank
Sydney-based expenses start-up for small business owners (SMB) DiviPay has raised AUD 2.3 million ($1.54 million) in its Series A funding round led by ANZi, the venture capital arm of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ Bank).
Big bank backing for DiviPay
Seed Space Ventures and former chief of Pepper Money Patrick Tuttle also contributed to the 2016-founded company’s financing round.
Leveraging a virtual Mastercard, DiviPay allocates SMB employees specific amounts to spend on secure, proofed purchases, avoiding previous methods such as sharing the credit cards, using petty cash, chasing receipts and filling out expense reports. These habits often leave companies open to fraud and wasteful spending.
“What we found was it was very difficult for small businesses in Australia to get access to corporate cards,” 27-year-old DiviPay co-founder Danial Kniaz tells The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Either they would require staff to use their own money or maybe there would be one or two company cards that would get passed around the office. One business used to photocopy the company card so it was in the top drawer of about 30 people’s desks.”
Read more: Three top Aussie banks back start-up that banishes paper receipts
Kniaz and fellow co-founder Russell Martin met at Australia’s first bank Westpac, where the pair spotted a gap in the market but quickly realised the legacy issues intrinsic in a big four bank. “We thought we could move a lot faster by doing our own things,” says Kniaz.
After joining fintech accelerator H2, they eventually created a virtual credit card, which has a business’ expense policy built into it so when employees make payments DiviPay collects the data, automatically categorises it and pushes it into the business’ accounting software.
By integrating with Xero, Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) and QuickBooks, the fintech can also allow SMBs to set strict transaction controls.
Kniaz hopes that its “game changer” product will become part of SMBs’ “essential business toolkit”.
