Peakflo’s bid to build business payments for Southeast Asia attracts capital, customers – TechCrunch

During that time most recent Y Combinator starter batch, Peakflo featured with TechCrunch. The company’s simple introduction – Bill.com for Southeast Asia – fits neatly into the broader story of the increasingly digitalized world of workflows and the generally hot market we want. seen for fintech companies.

At the time, we noted that “there are huge revenues to be found in helping companies spend and receive money,” adding that Peakflo is likely “ready to raise funds,” when it reached $13,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

So when Peakflo reached out to some fundraising news, we got the call. I talked to the co-founder and CEO Saurabh Chauhan on its fundraising, Peakflo’s historic growth, plans for new funding, and its revenue goals.

World vs Excel

If I asked you which software product is indispensable to the global economy, what would your answer be? My hunch is that it’s Excel, Microsoft’s spreadsheet app that’s been around longer than the modern internet – and, let’s be clear, has shipped longer than your scribe has lived.

Why? Because so many companies execute business processes inside Excel (or Sheets, these days) it’s truly a multi-modal tool for businesses. But as anyone who has really tried using multi-ool to combine anything with more than one screw can attest, you’re better off building something case-specific. use if you want to move faster.

Join Peakflo in the Southeast Asian market, where it is using the spreadsheet tools many businesses use to record their payments and outgoing invoices. I assume the CFO suite used to be a Microsoft Office license. Everything has change.

Chauhan estimates that 99% of his company’s customers come from Excel-like environments, which means that as Peakflo grows, it essentially acts as a barometer for the speed of digital transformation in the market. its target field.

Like Bill.com, Peakflo allows companies to pay bills and send invoices. In terms of products, Peakflo is a set of services that, according to Chauhan, include accounts receivable (money in), accounts payable (money out), a payment layer and an integration layer, linking services. with accounting software and some enterprise resource planning. All it takes to build and maintain, which means Peakflo – you guessed it – uses its new capital to rent.

How much money did the startup raise? Chauhan said it raised “nearly” $1 million when it was founded in 2021, and another $500,000 from Y Combinator in that time period. The rest of the $4.1 million Peakflow raised came later, in a round that ended a few weeks back. Choosing from its list of investors, in addition to accelerator support, Peakflo has attracted capital from Rebel Fund, Soma Capital, Amino Capital and others, including a number of individual activist investors, Also known as angel investor.

Why are so many different investors pouring capital into a startup that is building in a field that has already been seen Valuation records dropped in recent months? I think growth. According to Chauhan, since the Y Combinator era, Peakflo has added 10 to 15 customers per month, now the number is more than 50. With the recently expanded sales function, the company wants to hit 100 in the next month. and reach 1 million dollars per year. recurring revenue (ARR) at the beginning of 2023.

With fresh capital, a recruiting plan, and a big market to attack, we’ve set the countdown to that ARR threshold.

Gross profit margin

Before we get started, let’s learn a little more about pricing and margins. You may have noted above that we mentioned a payment layer. If you’ve been following the SaaS market for the past few years, your ears should have perked up a little at that point. Is Peakflo growing not only on software earnings but also on trading volume? The model was popular after all.

The answer, as best I can tell, is kinda. According to the startup’s CEO, the company can drive a gross margin of around 85% on its software products, but the figure is similar to 40% in the payments sector. Since Peakflo balances software costs based on payment volume, it doubles customer activity, but its gross margin difference shows why software is such a big deal. such a valuable business.

Much more as Peakflo hits seven-figure ARR.