Startup Tipalti Inc., which helps companies complete common accounting tasks faster, is now one of the world’s most valuable financial technology startups thanks to a newly closed $270 million funding round that values it at $8.3 billion.

The funding round, announced today, was led by G Squared. Marshall Wace, Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global investment arm and a number of existing Tipalti backers participated as well.

San Mateo, California-based Tipalti provides a cloud platform that is used by more than 2,000 companies worldwide to manage accounts payable, the process of paying external parties such as suppliers for goods and services. Many organizations still perform the task manually. According to research published by Tipalti last July, half of midsized to large companies spend around 500 person-hours a year on accounts payable chores and 27% spend up to 1,040 hours.

Tipalti’s cloud platform promises to automate or speed up many of the most time-consuming tasks involved in managing accounts payable. Built-in machine learning features automate chores such as entering data into forms. A complementary supplier management tool promises to reduce payment errors by upwards of two-thirds in some cases. Tipalti also provides features for a long list of related tasks, such as syncing data to a company’s accounting software and routing documents to the most relevant business units.

Tipalti targets its platform at midmarket companies with $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenues. One way the startup has sought to set the platform apart from rivals is by building a set of features aimed specifically at companies with multiple subsidiaries. According to Tipalti, its platform makes it easier to manage business units that each use a different set of processes and workflows in their accounting operations. 

Tipalti says that it currently processes transactions worth more than $30 billion annually for its customers. This figure represents a 120% year-over-year improvement, which helps explain the startup’s new $8.3 billion valuation. 

The increase in the volume of payments that Tipalti processes for its customers has been accompanied by rapid revenue growth. The startup disclosed in February that revenue jumped by more than 85% during the fourth quarter of 2020, but didn’t share absolute numbers.

To support its sales momentum, Tipalti plans to double down on product development. The startup will use the newly announced $270 million round to “add more to our product lines and capabilities in the next 18 months than we have over the past 10 years combined,” said Tipalti co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Chen Amit.

The startup reportedly also intends to double its go-to-market team. Last month, Tipalti announced plans to open a new office in Toronto with the goal of hiring 300 employees over the next two years. Including its Toronto hub, Tipalti currently has a half-dozen offices worldwide, a number that might continue to increase given the startup is launching a major push to expand go-to-market operations. 

“We believe Tipalti is reshaping how businesses manage their financial operations, and their growth and industry-leading retention rates are evidence that they are on a mission to solve important challenges for their customers,” said G Squared founder and Managing Partner Larry Aschebrook.

That corporate accounting departments are increasingly using software to automate repetitive tasks is part of a broader trend in the enterprise. Companies are deploying new software products, many of which use artificial intelligence, to speed up tasks ranging from form creation to application testing. Even business users without any specialized coding know-how are joining the fray by using no-code tools to build specialized applications that can automate parts of their work.

Now valued at $8.3 billion, Tipalti is worth about four times more than after its previous funding round last October. The startup has raised just over $550 million from investors to date. 

Photo: Tipalti