CIBC Innovation Banking provides growth financing to digital expense management platform Circula in €15m funding round
Berlin, 7 May 2025 – CIBC Innovation Banking today announced that it has provided growth financing to Circula, a leading Berlin-based digital expense management platform, as part of its €15m funding round. The funding will be used to expand its workflow capabilities with a continued focus on professional services, technology, and mid-market companies, as well as large, international organisations.
Founded in 2017, Circula helps businesses to automate and streamline all aspects of expense management processes on a single, centralised platform. Circula integrates with payroll, HR, enterprise resource planning (ERP), digital credit card, and travel booking systems to manage expense approvals.
The platform negates the need for employees to submit physical receipts and for finance teams to review expenses manually. Customer feedback shows that 84% of CFOs see a productivity increase when employees use Circula, with 75% time saved on expense reports for accounting teams.
Circula works with more than 2,800 companies across Germany. Circula was ranked in the top 100 of the FT1000 2024, an annual list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies, and in the Sifted 250 list 2024.
Nikolai Skatchkov, Co-founder and CEO of Circula said: “Over the last year, we have witnessed firsthand the potential that AI is unlocking in the finance department. We are excited to bring our vision of an AI-driven expense solution to the market in the upcoming months. The additional financing is giving us the means to continue to build the best product in our category and to continue on our path toward an effortless way to manage payments and business expenses. We are excited to build this future with existing investors and CIBC Innovation Banking”
Charlotte Goggin, Director of CIBC Innovation Banking said: “We are pleased to extend funding to Circula as it continues to build on its market-leading position in digital expense management across Germany. Up until 2019, German businesses were required to keep physical expense receipts. Now, in an age where businesses juggle digital receipts from most employees, Circula provides finance teams with AI driven tools to automate this process. We’re excited to see Circula take advantage of the growth opportunities that lie ahead.”
ENDS
About Circula
Circula is a digital expense platform for any payments done by employees: travel expenses,
credit cards and employee benefits. The company’s mission is to simplify finance and payroll
administration, while ensuring compliance through smart automations – so employees can do
their best job.
This way, Circula is creating the path for an employee-centric future around everyday business processes. This mantra has earned the company industry leader recognition from review platforms G2 and Capterra.
Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Circula is a leading expense management solution for small and medium-sized European businesses such as About You, DATEV, Deutsche Fußball Liga, Noerr, McMakler, and Securitas. Today, more than 150,000 employees use Circula. The company was founded in 2017 and has raised over USD 25 million in venture capital to date.
About CIBC Innovation Banking
CIBC Innovation Banking has 25 years of specialized experience in growth-stage tech and life science companies across North America – a longer track record than most banks. CIBC now has over $11 billion in funds managed including life sciences, health care, cleantech companies, investors, and entrepreneurs, and has assisted over 700 venture and private equity-backed businesses over the past six and a half years. The bank operates out of 14 global locations in San Francisco, Menlo Park, New York, Toronto, London, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta, Reston, and Durham. Connect with us today to start the conversation. https://www.innovationbanking.cibc.com/home
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