What happened: Berlin-based Circula has announced the extension of its Series A round, which is mainly focused on developing its AI-powered autonomous expense processing (Circula, EU Startups).
My comment: I typically don’t like covering pure funding news. But either it was a quiet week with bigger announcements (there are many smaller news stories in the section below), or I just missed it. I found Circula’s funding the most interesting for two reasons.
Firstly, and very personally to me, Circula’s VP of Product, Riaan Stipp, spoke at our last Embedded Finance Review Event in Berlin. After Accountable (acquired) and Pliant (Series B funding), it seems many of the companies that participate in our events are on a roll (correlation or causation? Who knows 😉).
Secondly, Circula is an excellent example of a company that is between fintech and expense management. There are a lot of different companies in this space, and personally, I would categorise some of them as pure fintech companies (e.g., Pliant, Moss, Pleo, Spendesk) and others (such as Circula) as something in between. The first group offered card products from day one, built them as much as possible in-house, and the card offering is core to their offering. On the other hand, Circula launched its card product roughly four years after its foundation, partnered instead of building in-house, and not all its customers use the Circula card product.
