Japan’s SBI Investment has led a $28 million Series A funding round for Berlin-based corporate card platform, Pliant.
Founded in 2020, Pliant offers a credit card platform that allows companies to issue physical, virtual, and one-time credit cards, seamlessly integrating with business back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Additionally, Pliant serves other fintech companies with an embedded card platform that they can provide to their clients. Recent partnerships include Candis, an invoice management software firm, and Circula, a provider of travel expense and employee benefits software.
SBI is joined by existing investors from Pliant’s previous pre-seed and seed funding rounds, including Carsten Maschmeyer’s Alstin Capital, finleap founder Ramin Niroumand through Motive Ventures, and neosfer, the early-stage fund of Commerzbank. Overall, Pliant has raised $48 million to date.
The investment comes during a challenging period for startups, as the EY Startup Barometer 2022 reported a 43% decline in venture capital investment in German startups compared to the previous year. Notably, Pliant’s Series A round marks the largest fintech funding in Germany for 2023 thus far.
Ramin Niroumand, partner at Motive Partners, stated: “The strong growth throughout the year, combined with the high level of modularity of the product suite, are reasons that Pliant was able to raise such a significant Series A round, despite the current market environment.”
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