Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year | TechCrunch 03/09/23 18:17

Featured Article TechC

Disru
Fintech startup Jeeves raises
$57M, goes from YC to $500M
valuation in one year
The founders of a dozen unicorn companies join VCs in
Series B

Mary Ann Azevedo @bayareawriter / 1:12 PM GMT-3 • September 2, 2021 Comment

Image Credits: Jeeves co-founders Sherwin Gandhi and Dileep Thazhmon / Jeeves

ast summer, Jeeves was participating in Y Combinator’s summer

L batch as a fledgling fintech.

This June, the startup emerged from stealth with $31 million in equity
and $100 million in debt financing. 

Today, the company, which is building an “all-in-one expense management

platform” for global startups, is announcing that it has raised a $57 million Series B

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Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year | TechCrunch 03/09/23 18:17

at a $500 million valuation. That’s up from a valuation of just north of $100 million at
the time of Jeeves’ Series A, which closed in May and was announced in early
June.

While the pace of funding these days is unlike most of us have ever seen before, it’s
pretty remarkable that Jeeves essentially signed the term sheet for its Series B just
two months after closing on its Series A. It’s also notable that just one year ago, it
was wrapping up a YC cohort.

Jeeves was not necessarily looking to raise so soon, but fueled by its growth in
revenue and spend after its Series A, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz
(a16z), the company was approached by dozens of potential investors and offered
multiple term sheets, according to CEO and co-founder Dileep Thazhmon. Jeeves
moved forward with CRV, which had been interested since the A and built a
relationship with Thazhmon, so it could further accelerate growth and launch in
more countries, he said.

CRV led the Series B round, which also included participation from Tencent, SVB
Capital, Alkeon Capital Management, Soros Fund Management and a high-profile
group of angel investors including NBA stars Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala,
Odell Beckham Jr. and The Chainsmokers’ Mantis Venture Capital. Notably, the
founders of a dozen unicorn companies also put money in the Series B including
(but not limited to) Clip CEO Adolfo Babatz; QuintoAndar CEO Gabriel Braga; Uala
CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri, BlockFi CEO Zac Prince; Mercury CEO Immad Akhund;
Bitso founder Pablo Gonzalez; Monzo Bank’s Tom Blomfield; Intercom founder Des
Traynor; Lithic CEO Bo Jiang as well as founders from UiPath, Auth0, GoCardless,
Nubank, Rappi, Kavak and others.

Whew.

Jeeves emerges from stealth with $131M in debt and equity

and a16z as a lead investor
Jeeves, which is building an “all-in-one expense management
platform” for global startups, is emerging from stealth today with
$131 million in total funding, including $31 million in equity and
$100 million in debt financing.  The $31 million in equity consists of
a new $26 million Series A and a previously unannounced $5
million seed round. … Continue reading

TechCrunch

The “fully remote” Jeeves describes itself as the first “cross country, cross
currency” expense management platform. The startup’s offering was live in Mexico
and Canada and today launched in Colombia, the United Kingdom and Europe as a
whole. 

Thazhmon and Sherwin Gandhi founded Jeeves last year under the premise that
startups have traditionally had to rely on financial infrastructure that is local and

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Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year | TechCrunch 03/09/23 18:17

Join TechCrunch+ country-specific. For example, a company with employees in Mexico and Colombia
Login would require multiple vendors to cover its finance function in each country — a
corporate card in Mexico and one in Colombia and another vendor for cross-border
Search payments.

TechCrunch+ Jeeves claims that by using its platform’s proprietary Banking-as-a-Service

Startups infrastructure, any company can spin up their finance function “in minutes” and get
Venture access to 30 days of credit on a true corporate card (with 4% cash back), non card
Security payment rails, as well as cross-border payments. Customers can also pay back in
AI multiple currencies, reducing FX (foreign transaction) fees.
Crypto
For example, a growing business can use a Jeeves card in Barcelona and pay it
Apps
back in euros and use the same card in Mexico and pay it back in pesos, reducing
Events
any FX fees and providing instant spend reconciliation across currencies. 
More
Thazhmon believes that the “biggest thing” the company is building out is its own
global BaaS layer, that sits across different banking entities in each country, and
onto which the end user customer-facing Jeeves app plugs into.

Put simply, he said, “think of it as a BaaS platform, but with only one app — the
Jeeves app — plugged into it.”

The startup has grown its

transaction volume (GTV) by more
than 5,000% since January, and
both revenue and spend volume has
increased more than 1,100% (11x)
since its Series A earlier this year,
according to Thazhmon.

Jeeves now covers more than 12

currencies and 10 countries across
three continents. Mexico is its
largest market. Jeeves is currently
beta testing in Brazil and Chile and
Thazhmon expects that by year’s
end, it will be live in all of North
America and Europe. Next year, it’s
eyeing the Asian market, and
Tencent should be able to help with
that strategically, he said.

“We’re building an all-in-one

expense management platform for
startups in LatAm and global
markets — cash, corporate cards, Image Credits: Jeeves
cross-border — all run on our own
infrastructure,” Thazhmon told TechCrunch. “Our model is very similar to that of
Uber’s launch model where we can launch very quickly because we don’t have to
rebuild an entire infrastructure. When we launch in countries, we actually don’t have

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Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year | TechCrunch 03/09/23 18:17

to rebuild a stack.”

Jeeves’ user base has been doubling every 60 days and now powers more than
1,000 companies across LatAm, Canada and Europe, including Bitso, Kavak,
RappiPay, Belvo, Runa, Moons, Convictional, Muncher, Juniper, Trienta, Platzi,
Worky and others, according to Thazhmon. The company says it has a current
waitlist of over 15,000.

Jeeves plans to use its new capital toward its launch in Colombia, the U.K. and
Europe. And, of course, toward more hiring. It’s already doubled its number of
employees to 55 over the past month.

Former a16z partner Matt Hafemeister was so impressed with what Jeeves is
building that in August he left the venture capital firm to join the startup as its head
of growth. In working with the founders as an investor, he concluded that they
ranked “among the best founders in fintech” he’d ever interacted with.

The decision to leave a16z also related to Jeeves’ inflection point, Hafemeister
said. The startup is nearly doubling every month, and had already eclipsed year-
end goals on revenue by mid-year.

“It is evident Jeeves has found early product market fit and, given the speed of
execution, I see Jeeves establishing itself as one of the most important fintech
companies in the next few years,” Hafemeister told TechCrunch. “The company is
transitioning from a seed company to a Series B company very quickly, and being
able to help operationalize processes and play a role in their growth and maturity is
an incredible opportunity for me.”

Tracking startup focus in the latest Y Combinator cohort

First, some housekeeping: Thanks to our new corporate parents,
TechCrunch has the day off tomorrow, so consider this the last
chapter of The Exchange for this week. (The newsletter will go out
Saturday as always.) Also, Alex is off next week. Anna is taking on
next week’s newsletter and may have a column or two … Continue
reading

TechCrunch

CRV General Partner Saar Gur (who is also an early investor in DoorDash, Patreon
and Mercury) said he was blown away by Jeeves’ growth and how it has been
“consistently hitting and exceeding targets month over month.” Plus, early
feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive, Gur said.

“Jeeves is building products and infrastructure that are very difficult to execute but
by doing the ‘hard things’ they offer incredible value to their customers,” he told
TechCrunch. “We haven’t seen anyone build from the ground up with global
operations in mind on day one.”

More TechCrunch

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Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year | TechCrunch 03/09/23 18:17

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Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year | TechCrunch 03/09/23 18:17

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