Pliant raises $19m in extended Series A led by PayPal Ventures

By Gloria Methri

Pliant, a business-to-business (B2B) credit card platform, has closed more than €18 million in Series A extension financing led by PayPal Ventures. Existing investors SBI Investment, Motive Ventures, and Alstin Capital also participated in the round. This brings Pliant’s total Series A financing to more than €50 million.

The company has successfully passported its Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license to 25 countries across the European Economic Area (EEA), allowing Pliant to not only issue cards in these countries but also to provide additional financial products and services that serve the unique regional needs of their customers.

Malte Rau, CEO of Pliant, said, “We are excited to welcome PayPal Ventures as a new shareholder, and we’re looking forward to continuing to grow the company as we expand into new markets, starting with the UK.”

Pliant’s cards-as-a-service (CaaS) product allows partner businesses to launch their credit card programs to serve their customers, adding a new revenue stream and increasing customer retention. The product has seen success with its early partnerships with tech companies like Candis and mobilexpense, as well as with banks. Pliant will look to continue expanding its go-to-market strategy and development with this product in 2024.

Ashish Aggarwal, Partner with PayPal Ventures, said, “Pliant has emerged as a leading player in B2B payments in continental Europe, thanks to its next-generation, multi-tenant credit card-as-a-service platform that allows easy integration via application programming interfaces or embedded user interfaces. We are proud to be backing the company on its growth path.”

Pliant will now pursue expansion outside the EU for the first time, starting with the UK. To facilitate its expansion, the company has developed multi-currency capabilities and can now offer its services in 11 currencies. This will allow customers to be billed in the same currency in which the transaction was paid, which is particularly useful for companies with significant transaction volumes in non-EUR currencies.