Apron, a UK startup that slashes the time small businesses spend processing invoices, has raised a $15 million Series A.
Founded by former Revolut product lead Bogdan Uzbekov and soft-launched just six months ago, Apron claims to be already processing millions of pounds of transactions every month, working with hundreds of client companies and thousands of payment recipients.
Uzbekov says he saw the potential behind Apron during a short six-month stint working at Square as European Operations lead, where he was surprised by the gap between the consumer and merchant offerings for managing payments.
"In consumer electronics, you need to understand the hardware as well as the software - that’s why Apple have been so successful," he says. "For Apron, you can think of our payments platform as the hardware, and our carefully designed workflows as the software. We’re not just a slick app, but a critical cog in the business machine that keeps small businesses moving forward."
Rather than replacing accounting software, Apron weaves into existing workflows and connects to software that businesses and accountants are already using. Alongside the ability to effectively manage and reconcile invoices, Apron also enable users to pay multiple suppliers at once across a nework that encompasses 150+ countries and 30+ currencies.
With the Series A funding - led by Index Ventures with support from Bessemer Ventures and Visionaries Clube - Uzbekov says Apron will expand its 20-strong team and build on the existing product suite.