Spend management company Airbase announces record growth in first half.

With a growing demand for spend management in the marketplace, the company’s all-in-one platform reached new heights in 2020.

SAN FRANCISCO – September 2, 2020 – Spend management company Airbase today announces record growth in the 12 months ending Q2 2020, realizing a year-on-year ARR growth of 280%. The first two quarters of 2020 also saw a healthy net revenue retention rate of 126%.

Notable new customers include Cameo, Docker, Heap, Mixmax, HackerRank, Productboard, Gremlin, OpenGov, and Eight Sleep. Consistent with both the expansion in the number of new customers and extensions to its product, Airbase saw an increase of 530% in payment volume through its platform from end of Q2 2019 to end of Q2 2020.

The considerable growth experienced by Airbase this fiscal year is perhaps more because of, and not in spite of, the current economic climate. For many mid-sized companies, the pandemic-induced shutdown highlighted operational inefficiencies, lack of visibility, and insufficient control over expenses. Airbase’s platform addresses these problems by automating accounting and approval workflows, through one platform for all types of payment, and by providing reporting for all expenses in real time.

In March of this year, Airbase announced that it secured $23.5 million in Series A extension funding. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures, a new investor, and also included returning investors, First Round Capital and BoxGroup. Additional new investors included Webb Investment Network; Frederic Kerrest, Executive Vice Chairman, COO, and co-founder of Okta; and Ron Gill, former CFO at NetSuite. The total amount raised by the company to date is $30.8 million.

The latest funding round provided the financial resources to advance into this uncertain environment by accelerating hiring on Airbase’s product team and making key hires in the go-to-market team. This period has been marked by fast-paced product development, delivering new features and innovations, and establishing a best-in-class platform in the emerging spend management category.

Airbase has expanded its headcount by nearly 70% in 2020 and now employs 73 people in a fully-distributed team based in 9 countries. The company grew the product development team by 100% to 40 in total, and expects to add another 50% by the end of the year. Airbase also made additional investments in marketing, hiring AppDynamics and Mixpanel alumni Emma Dunstone as VP of Marketing.

Airbase has also teamed up with 11 new strategic partners, including a new, deep integration and collaboration with Sage Intacct, acceptance onto Oracle NetSuite’s BFN program, and deepening relationships with existing integration partners QuickBooks and Xero.

The increased engineering capacity has allowed Airbase to add additional functionality to its core product and solidify its place as the most comprehensive spend management platform available to mid-market companies. The most significant addition is the continued build-out of a comprehensive bill payments function that fully rivals the legacy of Bill.com. With Airbase, corporate card spending (virtual and physical) and invoiced transactions are consolidated into one platform, where payments for invoices can be made via ACH or check. Other improved areas include real-time reporting on all spending (by employee and by department), support for all approval workflows via mobile app, Slack and Okta integrations, and both Apple Pay and Google Pay functionality.

“We’re proud to be investing so much in growth,” said Thejo Kote, Founder and CEO of Airbase. “Our team is determined to help as many companies as possible to modernize one of the most basic activities in any business – spending money. We’re thrilled to see some of the fastest growing companies adopting Airbase to increase control and visibility over spend during a challenging period, while simultaneously reducing the overall effort and cost involved in achieving that goal.”

In order to allow every company to experience the power of a comprehensive spend management platform, Airbase recently added a free version to its offerings. This approach is allowing even small businesses to start off with the right spend hygiene and avoid the need for an expensive effort to switch systems as they scale into mid-market businesses.

Moving into the second half of the fiscal year, Airbase is strongly positioned and is focused on providing more new ways to empower its customers. Of these, Airbase is most excited to soon support international payments, reimbursements, and companies with multiple international subsidiaries. With a fast-growing list of customers – Front, Gusto, Doximity, Segment, Tatcha, Getaround, Ro, Eko Health, and more – and a team dedicated to bringing finance into the 21st Century, Airbase looks forward to continued success.