Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 32. Published 3 September 2025. Guest: Philipp Adrian Pohlmann, Director of Product and GM at PandaDoc. Host: Lars Markull.
Lars Markull: What happens when a leading document management platform decides not just to digitise contracts, but to own the full quote to cash journey? Today's guest knows firsthand, because he's building it. Philipp Adrian Pohlmann is Director of Product and GM at PandaDoc, where he scaled payments from incubation into one of the company's most strategic product pillars. PandaDoc, trusted by over 60,000 customers worldwide, acquired Philipp's fintech startup Denario to jumpstart this journey.
In our conversation we cover how to convince a document-first company to think like a fintech, design payment flows that feel invisible to users, navigate global payment providers, and why Philipp believes not every company should become a fintech.
My name is Lars Markull, and this is the Embedded Finance Review Podcast. Every two weeks I interview the builders and shapers of embedded finance. And a quick reminder from my side. At Embedded Finance Review I publish weekly newsletters, a biweekly podcast, and host in-person and virtual industry events. You can find all of these on my website, embeddedfinancereview.com. In addition, I work with non-financial brands, infrastructure providers, and banks in understanding, designing and launching their embedded finance products. If you're interested in working with me, visit my website and reach out. And now let's dive in.
Welcome
Lars Markull: Hey Philipp, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today, and in what part of the world are you actually located right now?
Philipp Adrian Pohlmann: Thank you Lars. Thanks for having me. I'm based in Berlin, so in Germany. I'm speaking to you out of the coworking space here in Berlin.
Lars Markull: So you're also enjoying, same as me, the beautiful Berlin August weather of a lot of rain, which I guess is very uncommon.
Philipp Adrian Pohlmann: One of the best summers we ever had.
What PandaDoc is
Lars Markull: I like that statement, Philipp. Let's dive in. You are working with PandaDoc. PandaDoc is a software as a service company that helps customers create proposals, contracts including e-signatures, quotes, and a lot more. It's a quite, let's say, broad offering. Can you walk us a little bit through the origin of the company, what has happened in the last couple of years to this offering?
Philipp Adrian Pohlmann: Yeah, certainly. So I think at PandaDoc what we really try to do is focus as an agreement platform, focusing on the deal cycle that a customer might have. So this can start from CRM, or from really having a lead, to getting that lead to sign a contract, and then later on invoice or pay against that contract in a post-signature flow.
But the origin of PandaDoc is really in helping customers to close deals faster. And I think that origin has really stayed with the company and has now evolved into this agreement platform that helps to make agreement workflows more transparent and really powering business transactions for small to medium sized businesses.