Alaan, the leading spend management platform in the Middle East, recently shot to fame by raising $48 million in a Series A funding round. This funding represents one of the largest ever awarded the time MENA region! The funding round was led by Peak XV Partners. Other significant investors include the founders of 885 Capital, Y Combinator, 468 Capital, and Pioneer Fund. Parthi Duraisamy and Karun Kurien, both McKinsey alumni, founded Alaan in 2022. Their ambitions don’t stop there—they hope to revolutionize financial processes for enterprises across the region.
The platform has rapidly attracted engagement, reaching $10 million in revenue and staying profitable by burning $5 million. Alaan has already successfully processed more than 2.5 million transactions. This milestone enables over 1,500 finance teams in prestigious institutions such as G42, Careem, Tabby and Lulu Group. Notably, Alaan has saved finance teams more than 1.5 million hours of manual work through its innovative approach to expense management.
Alaan’s approach is a hands-on, real-time embrace of AI. This method automates labor-intensive tasks such as matching receipts, reconciliation, and extracting VAT. And earlier this year Microsoft brought OpenAI into its fold in a bid to supercharge its own AI capabilities.
In addition to its focus on AI, Alaan has made strides in expanding its services by integrating Apple Pay into its B2B offerings, positioning itself as a pioneer in the region’s fintech landscape. In addition, in early 2023 the company made its first foray into the Saudi Arabian market. These market conditions have helped its transaction volumes double month after month over the past six months.
Duraisamy also provided a behind-the-scenes look at the early struggles in getting the platform off the ground. He stated, “The biggest challenge we faced, both in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, was simply going live.” Tough love Alaan’s focus on emerging fintech verticals has already paid off as Alaan finds its niche and goes deep.
The new funding now allows Alaan to massively scale its own operations, too. The firm’s immediate hiring priorities will be in sales, customer success, and compliance departments. Additionally, it plans to improve its AI-powered finance automation features.
When discussing the importance of fundamentals in fundraising discussions, Duraisamy emphasized, “When you talk to investors, what really matters for a company at our stage is the fundamentals: how capital-efficient we are, how much revenue we generate, how strong our go-to-market motion is.” This emphasis on operational efficiency and growth has drawn massive hitter investor interest.
Alaan started out with a $2.5 million seed round in mid-2021. Since then, it’s become one of the most crucial tools for finance teams looking to streamline and improve their spend management workflows. The company’s powerful technology solutions make the financial part easy. Something that was once a herculean and manual task for groups is now as simple as a few clicks.
Alaan, overwhelmed with hope and ambition, looks toward the future. Apart from asserting itself in the Middle East, it is looking to expand its footprints in other markets. This mixture of cutting-edge technology and nuanced understanding of regional finance priorities has set Alaan up for a meteoric rise.