London fintech Jeeves gets Tencent backing in $180m funding round
London corporate card fintech Jeeves has won the backing of Chinese tech giant Tencent in a fresh $180m funding round announced today.
The cash injection has seen the fintech’s value rocket to $2.1bn just nine months after it was launched to the public, with bosses now readying to take the firm’s card and expense management platform to a host of new global markets this year.
Jeeves has won a list of big name backers in the new round alongside Chinese tech giant Tencent, which led the round, including Stanford University, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silicon Valley Bank.
Tencent has now pumped cash into a number of UK tech and fintech firms, including building a sizeable stake in digital bank Monzo and co-leading a $120m investment into software-as-a-service firm Omnipresent, also announced today.
Jeeves boss Dileep Thazhmon said today’s funding was a vote of confidence in the firm during a difficult economic moment.
“While we are in one of the toughest environments for startup funding this year, we are excited in the trust investors have, not only in Jeeves but in growing businesses who will be able to use our financial products globally,” he said.
Jeeves has a presence across 24 countries, but bosses said they were now looking to use the capital to fuel a new global push across Latin America, Europe and Canada.
The firm’s client base has doubled to more than 3000 companies with revenues booming by 900 per cent since its Series B in September, the firm said.
Jeeves has now generated more revenue in the first two months of 2022 than all of 2021 combined, the firm said today.
Alongside the funding, Jeeves has snapped up a number of senior hires including Chief Technology Officer, Arpan Nanavati, previously Head of Engineering at PayPal, and Director of Partnerships, Trent Beckley, who joins from his role as Strategic Partnerships Lead at Google.