Spendesk acquires Okko and expands its offering

Spendesk has just completed its first acquisition, extending its expertise to include purchasing management. By integrating Okko, the French unicorn is demonstrating its ambition to become a benchmark in professional expense management, whether for company purchases or employee expenses. A pioneer in its field, Okko has developed a promising solution that will be fully integrated with Spendesk.

FACTS

• Spendesk expands its business through the acquisition of the start-up Okko, specialized in purchasing and supplier relationship management.

• Okko helps companies to digitalize their purchasing management, from the initial request to the final order. It does this by streamlining purchasing processes and stages, making them more transparent and collaborative.

• In addition to Spendesk's spend management services, the unicorn's offering will be expanded to address issues such as:

  • supplier management ;

  • collaborative purchase requisitions

  • approval workflows

  • contract renewals.

• In this way, the entire process will be handled in a single flow, on a single platform.

• Spendesk currently targets companies with between 50 and 1,000 employees. Present in France, Germany, the UK and Spain, the company boasts 5,000 customers across its entire area of activity.

• The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed; Okko employees will join Spendesk's 570-strong workforce, and the start-up will be fully integrated under the Spendesk brand.

CHALLENGES

• Setting the standard for corporate payments: although Spendesk currently focuses mainly on employee spending, via its dedicated bank card, it makes no secret of its ambition to cover the entire range of corporate payment processes, and thus become the benchmark in the field.

• From payment cards and expense automation to invoice and budget management, Spendesk has worked its way up the purchasing and expense management chain to offer a complete solution. The unicorn positions its solution as a significant time-saver, and estimates that its customers close their accounts 4 times faster.

• A young company with a strong track record: Okko was launched less than a year ago, but already boasts a number of major customers. Companies such as PayFit, Ledger and Payplug use its purchasing management solution.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• In Europe, Spendesk has to contend with larger, longer-established competitors. These solutions, such as NetSuite or SAP, are particularly popular with large companies, as they offer additional functions such as accounting. This is also one of the reasons why Spendesk focuses primarily on companies with fewer than 1,000 employees.

• Founded in 2016, Spendesk has grown steadily to become a leading fintech in terms of corporate expense management in France. In early 2022, a fundraising round of over €100 million propelled the start-up to unicorn status.