Under leadership of new CEO Barrett Boston, funding will help expand Plate IQ’s VendorPay network and footprint across new industries with holistic and vertically purpose-built solutions
Plate IQ, the leading restaurant and hospitality accounts payable (AP) automation and payments platform, announced that it has raised $160 million in Series B funding from FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity investment firm. With this new funding Plate IQ will accelerate efforts to close the supply chain gap between operators and vendors with its AP automation and payments network. Plate IQ also announced the appointment of Barrett Boston, former chief revenue officer of Trinet (NYSE: TNET), to the role of chief executive officer. Boston brings significant experience and a track record of success across vertical applications of technology.
“From the outset of our discussions, it was clear that FTV Capital offered the ideal deep payments sector expertise needed to help us expand our footprint in the $3.3 trillion B2B middle market payments landscape”
As pandemic-related supply chain woes mount, a gap is growing between vendor expectations of receiving payment and businesses’ ability to process and pay invoices on time. Additional margin pressure due to commodity price volatility and labor shortages means that more businesses than ever are turning to Plate IQ’s Zero-Touch AP automation to deploy enterprise-grade back-office automation, pay vendors faster and earn cash back with the VendorPay network.
Last month, Plate IQ announced the launch of VendorPay, a network that allows customers to pay more than 180,000 vendors directly from their AP platform and earn cash back via secure digital payments. Vendors can use VendorPay to track the payment status of their invoices and reconcile payments to outstanding invoices digitally.
“Plate IQ’s Zero-Touch AP automation and payments platform has always been designed to meet the unique challenges and needs of the verticals in which we operate,” said Boston. “I’m excited to build on our amazing payments experience, not just for our restaurant and hospitality customers, but also for customers in other verticals such as grocery, professional services, retail and more. Over the course of my career, I have appreciated the tremendous value in building products that uniquely fit the customer’s needs. Our mission at Plate IQ is to continue building holistic, vertically integrated solutions for each industry we serve, powered by world-class engineering and product teams.”
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Plate IQ’s post-pandemic growth has been exceptional. Since March 2020, Plate IQ has added over 8,000 customers and processed over $2 billion in invoice payments through the VendorPay network as of October 2021 – a testament to the secular shift in favor of digital payments as a response to the pandemic. The surge in demand for digital payments and back-office automation in the restaurant and hospitality industries has also driven Plate IQ’s dominance in AP automation with over 50,000 invoices processed daily from 20,000 business locations.
Plate IQ’s vertical-first approach to building capabilities and integrations has made it a leading AP automation tool across the restaurant and hospitality sectors, from Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants and national fast food chains to hotel groups and country clubs.
“When I started at Tender Greens, our AP department had three people,” says Sean Skuro, vice president of finance and accounting at national fast-casual chain Tender Greens. “Today, even as our business grew from 17 to 24 locations, Plate IQ has cut our bookkeeping costs in half and allowed us to move forward with an AP team of just one employee.”
With the investment from FTV Capital, Robert Anderson, partner at FTV Capital, and Gary Weber, vice president at FTV Capital, are joining Plate IQ’s board of directors, alongside existing board members and Plate IQ co-founders, Bhavuk Kaul and Ram Jayaraman.
“As longtime investors in business automation and payments technology, it’s exciting to see the rapid pace of innovation today across the AP automation and B2B payments landscape as digital platforms upend manual processes and legacy systems,” said Rob Anderson, partner at FTV Capital. “With its unique approach of building vertically holistic, market-leading software, Plate IQ has proven its leadership in the restaurant and hospitality sectors and is well poised to serve new industries urgently seeking ways to automate back-office operations. Furthermore, the shift to digital B2B payments represents a tremendous growth opportunity, and we are thrilled to partner with Plate IQ as they continue to innovate.”
“From the outset of our discussions, it was clear that FTV Capital offered the ideal deep payments sector expertise needed to help us expand our footprint in the $3.3 trillion B2B middle market payments landscape,” said Kaul. “In the coming weeks and months, we will launch an exciting pipeline of vertically-specialized products and services to holistically address vendor/customer pain points in our target industries. With the backing of FTV Capital, Plate IQ begins a new era of success, in alignment with a business partner that shares our vision and possesses a unique ability to help us accelerate our growth.”
Kaul, who has led Plate IQ as chief executive officer since 2014, will now transition to the role of president. In this role he will provide long-term continuity, institutional expertise and strategic guidance as the company scales.
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