Expense and payment management platform Payhawk has become the first $1bn startup in Bulgaria, after extending its Series B funding round this morning.
Payhawk raised $112m in November 2021, already the largest startup funding round in Central and Eastern Europe, at a $570m price tag.
Today the fintech broke another record by extending the round by $100m and nearly doubling its valuation in the process to $1bn, to become Bulgaria’s first unicorn.
“Becoming the first unicorn in Bulgaria is a huge testament to the hard work and resilience of our team over the last three and a half years,” said Payhawk’s founder and CEO Hristo Borisov.
“We always knew that we could build a big company if we addressed a significant problem in a large market. The size of the opportunity still drives our growth and ambition today.”
As well as an office in Sofia, Bulgaria, Payhawk also has offices in London, Berlin and Barcelona, and says it will use its fresh funding to expand further with openings in Amsterdam, Paris in March and New York in September.
It’ll also tripe the company’s headcount from 100 to over 300 by the end of the year, with sales and marketing key to the company’s market expansion.
Today’s round is led by new investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with Sprints Capital, Endeavour Catalyst, HubSpot Ventures, and Jigsaw VC, and all of Payhawk’s existing investors are participating, including Greenoaks, QED Partners, and Earlybird Digital East.
Payhawk tackles a host of problems for businesses, including managing company cards, dealing with expenses, generating reports, bill payments, and invoices, much of which is currently done manually in many organisations.
“Every employee that deals with company payments feels that there should be a better way to do it, but this huge problem was never tackled by a strong product team with hardcore engineering background. This is what Payhawk brings to the market,” added Borisov.
