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.
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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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