CleverCards, a custom payments startup, raises $8.6 million.

A startup that uses technology to stop employees from abusing corporate spending has just raised €8 million ($8.6 million) in funding from investors, defying a slump in investment in the fintech industry.

CleverCards, a Dublin-headquartered firm, uses a digital platform linked to customizable expense cards to give companies control over how their employees use their corporate payment cards.

According to Global Survey 2016 The CFO of staffing company Robert Half had employees make several inappropriate requests for expense reports, including a dog day spa, taxidermy services, dance lessons, a beef flank and even a welder.

These requests, while strange, reflect a harsh reality for many companies when it comes to corporate spending: Sometimes they can’t trust employees’ judgment.

CleverCards CEO Keelan Lennon says his platform aims to do just that.

Instead of giving employees corporate credit cards that they can use to make purchases anywhere in the world, CleverCards allows businesses to provide prepaid cards that can be set to be used only by certain employees and block certain transactions if they are considered inappropriate.

“Companies want to make sure that the right employee gets the card and that it will only be used for certain purposes,” Lennon told CNBC.

“This is financial control,” he added. “The idea of ​​a customizable payment platform didn’t exist before. And by doing it digitally, it allowed customers to come in and say, “I want to be able to do this at the click of a button.”

CleverCards exclusively told CNBC on Friday that it has raised new funds in an investment round led by strategic investor Pluxee. The new investment brings the total amount of funds raised by CleverCards to date to more than €28 million.

Pluxee is a voucher and employee benefits platform that spun off from French catering company Sodexo earlier this year.

The company is listed on the Euronext stock exchange in France and is valued at €4 billion.

Founded in 2019, CleverCards has attracted more than 10,000 companies as clients. The company’s clients include companies such as eBay, PaddyPower, Betfair, Accenture, Microsoft and Apple.

In addition to these businesses, CleverCard also works with public sector organizations.

In 2022, CleverCards partnered with the UK government to help pay social security payments to people with smart meters who usually pay their bills by direct debit but have been forced to seek additional financial help due to rising fuel prices. The cards could only be used to pay bills on some utility company websites.

Lennon said CleverCards used artificial intelligence to verify the identity of recipients, which helped avoid fraud.

Lennon said CleverCards’ funding round stood out in the cutthroat fintech dealmaking and fundraising market.

“It’s a tough environment,” he said. “In the current jam in the market, fundraising has been quite impressive because no one is raising capital.”

He said CleverCards is increasingly taking business away from payment technology giants such as Adyen and Stripe.

“What was remarkable about this was that, as a small company, we looked at Stripes and Adyens and moved forward,” he said, adding that now “we have won business from them.”

CleverCards will use the new funds to expand its business, scale its products and explore broader opportunities, he said.

In addition to the fundraising, CleverCards has appointed five new non-executive directors with experience in the payments technology sector to its board.

These include industry veterans Patrick Waldron, Donal Daly, Mark Frappier, Harry Lyons and Victoria Otero del Val.