From team outings to work-related car rentals, an organization’s employees may find various situations where company funds are needed. In today’s fluctuating economic environment and growing hybrid workforce, employee spend has become widespread and trickier to manage. Bellevue-based Center closed a Series B round on Wednesday to help companies track and reconcile their expenses.
“Inflation, economic uncertainty and a rise in hybrid work has changed the playbook for how mid-market companies manage employee spend effectively,” Naveen Singh, Center’s CEO and co-founder, told Built In via email. “As employee spend has become more diverse and distributed, new challenges in managing this spend while supporting employee productivity have emerged.”
Some of these challenges include facilitating travel to keep distributed teams connected and more closely accounting for expenses amid economic inflation.
Center pulled in $15 million to help businesses combat these matters with its automated solution. The round brings the company’s total venture capital to more than $110 million.
Center’s main product is a corporate card that communicates in real-time with the connected app to notify finance and accounting teams about employee spending, even before expenses are formally reported. Its platform also automatically categorizes expenses and integrates with finance tools like QuickBooks and NetSuite.
“Our integrated corporate card and real-time expense software provides immediate visibility and control over all employee spending,” Singh said. “We have a consumption-based business model, meaning customers only pay for what they use and there’s no upfront or ongoing investment. Our endlessly configurable software enables finance teams to streamline the entire expense process and shave days off of month’s end close.”
The company serves customers across industries like construction, manufacturing and professional services and offers tools geared toward financial teams, C-suite executives, employees and more. Its product suite offers solutions for travel expenses, purchasing cards, billable expense tracking and other business needs.
While venture funding has been sparser lately, Center attributes its successful raise and business momentum to financial discipline and intentional growth. The company will put its fresh funding toward furthering this momentum.
Center plans to scale by expanding its product offerings, fueling customer support for small and mid-size enterprises and innovating different spend management products.
Additionally, the company is also building out its team. Center is currently hiring for several positions spanning product, sales, operations and project management.
