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UAE-based fintech start-up Alaan, which seeks to transform the processing of corporate expenses in businesses, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding.
The investment was led by 468 Capital, Global Founders Capital and Presight Capital, with participation from several angel investors, including the founders of Scalable Capital and Hedosophia.
Founded in 2021 by former McKinsey employees Parthi Duraisamy and Karun Kurien, Alaan provides a multi-currency spend management platform for employees to make corporate transactions using e-cards and automatically reconciles spending in real time.
The platform issues virtual cards in different currencies, including UAE dirhams, Saudi riyals and US dollars. The cards can be used in e-commerce transactions, SaaS subscriptions, vendor payments or in-store purchases.
The platform also eliminates expense reports and automates bookkeeping tasks via integration with various accounting solution providers.
“Our vision is to offer SMEs and entrepreneurs an innovative platform to manage company spend, be it through card rails or account-to-account rails,” said Duraisamy, who also serves as the CEO of Alaan.
Duraisamy noted that the business payments space in the UAE has not yet seen a “substantial transformation”, although 80 percent of consumer-related transactions are already being done electronically.
“The old world of offline payments still rules. This is where Alaan comes in. We enable businesses to manage expenses smartly, seamlessly and digitise their payment flow.”
(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Daniel Luiz)
