Israeli auto-procurement fintech Approve.com lands $5m
Approve.com, an Israeli fintech which automates the procurement process, has landed $5 million in a seed funding round.
The round was led by Aleph, an early venture capital investor which has stakes in Wix, Lemonade, and Houseparty.
Approve’s founder says procurement “market in dire need of a cultural shift”
The fresh capital will go towards Approve’s US expansion. The funding will also fuel its research and development (R&D) team’s next projects, as well as support the fintech’s existing client base.
Origins of Approve
Bar Winkler, Approve’s co-founder and CEO, previously founded a business-to-business (B2B) branded merchandise provider.
The company serviced more than 200 enterprise clients, and quickly became familiar with some of the longest procurement processes out there.
“Throughout that journey, I saw first-hand the struggle legacy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions created,” says Winkler. “A market in dire need of a cultural shift.”
Then came along Approve, a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform which standardises and automates the procurement process.
How does Approve work?
The fintech’s platform aims to reduce the “disarray of ad-hoc emails and spreadsheets” which usually blight the process, it says in a statement.
The platform’s interface gives buyers and sellers a more granular view of the purchasing workflow, including clearer insight into a project’s overall cost.
Users can create custom approval workflows, as well as track sent requests, orders and vendor onboarding. The fintech integrates with a company’s existing ERP solution to sync up-to-date budgets.
Approve also offers a searchable vendor database which acts a bit like a marketplace.
“Procurement is a neglected field with huge opportunity for innovation,” says Eden Shochat, a partner at Approve’s investor, Aleph.
“The ease of use is key here [in Approve’s solution], along with the automation and integration the platform offers,” Shochat adds.
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