Dive Brief:

• Finance automation firm Tipalti has obtained $200 million in growth financing from Hercules Capital, the fintech said in a Wednesday press release. 
• The financing will be used to further Tipalti’s investments in artificial intelligence and product innovation, as well as support customer growth, Tipalti said. A spokesperson for Tipalti didn’t immediately respond to inquiries related to the company’s fundraising total, its current valuation or whether it’s profitable.
• Tipalti recently exceeded $200 million in annual recurring revenue, which CEO and co-founder Chen Amit said reflects “the growing urgency for finance operations efficiency globally.”

Dive Insight:

Foster City, California-based Tipalti, founded in 2010, focuses on accounts payable automation, global payments, procurement, and expense and supplier management. The fintech said it currently works with about 5,000 global companies.

The company pitches its services to accounting and finance departments at middle-market businesses in a number of sectors, and counts Bill Holdings, Brex, Global Payments’ MineralTree and AvidXchange among its competitors. In 2023, Tipalti obtained $150 million in growth financing from JPMorgan Chase and Hercules Capital. 

Tipalti currently processes $75 billion in annualized payment volume, and its customer base spans the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Europe. The company entered the European market in 2021. 

“We are proud to deepen our long-standing partnership with Tipalti at such an exciting stage of their growth journey,” Catherine Jhung, senior managing director of Hercules Capital, said in the release. “Their proven track record of pairing strong growth with meaningful product innovation makes them a rare company.”

The financing deal follows Tipalti’s June acquisition of treasury automation startup Statement. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed; a spokesperson for Tipalti didn’t immediately respond to inquiries related to the number of employees that company has and whether all remained post-acquisition. 

Integrating that firm’s technology has enabled Tipalti to bolster its AI capabilities with a more agentic approach, adding “context-aware AI agents” within its software platform to handle repetitive tasks, the company said Wednesday. 

Those include AI agents focused on reporting, to quickly generate customized reports, tax form scanning, purchase requests to hasten the intake process, and branded experience, Tipalti said. The company also enhanced its AI assistant capabilities.