Toronto-based corporate card and expense management technology startup Float has begun rolling out a pair of new offerings: bill pay and reimbursements.
With these products, Float aims to make it easier for Canadian businesses to pay bills and ensure their employees are reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses.
“We’re on a mission to simplify spending for companies and teams.”
Rob Khazzam, Float
This is part of the business finance platform’s plan to help customers manage their spending “all in one place,” from corporate card expenses to personal reimbursements, and bill pay, Float co-founder and CEO Rob Khazzam told BetaKit in an exclusive interview.
Founded in 2019, Float aims to simplify spending for Canadian companies. The startup’s flagship business finance platform combines corporate cards with spend management software, giving finance teams real-time visibility into business spending as well as the capacity to spend, track, approve, and reconcile expenses.
Today, Float serves over 3,000 Canadian businesses, including challenger bank Neo Financial, pub chain The Fox & Fiddle, and underwear maker Knix. The startup, which says it caters largely to small- and medium-sized businesses left underserved by banks and legacy solutions, claims to have seen continued growth despite challenging tech and FinTech market conditions.
In 2015, back when Khazzam worked as a general manager for Uber, he had a €150,000 expense report that took months of back and forth to get reimbursed in a painful, time- and labour-intensive experience that helped inspire him to launch Float in the first place.
“We’re on a mission to simplify spending for companies and teams,” Khazzam said. “Our key insight is that great teams and great businesses today are massively bogged down by really poor, inefficient finance processes, so, things like paying bills [and] reimbursing your employees for out-of-pocket expenses.”
RELATED: Float’s CEO on bridging the spending and software divide
Khazzam recently joined the BetaKit Podcast to discuss the frustrations Canadian businesses face in managing and executing their finances, the harmful effects of stalled financial innovation, and Float’s atypical approach to product roadmapping.
Today, Khazzam claimed that many Canadian businesses either use international solutions like Expensify that have not been localized for Canada, or outdated local options like the country’s big banks to accomplish these tasks.
“With Float as an example, you’re never going to have to wonder about the treatment of HST and GST,” Khazzam said. “You’re never going to have to worry about Float’s ability to handle the nuances of the Canadian market, because Float is purpose-built for the Canadian market.”
Regarding the banks, Khazzam argued that while they excel in some areas, they also have some limitations. “The area that we see a real gap is the digital product experience,” Khazzam said. “Customers want to do something in one place and one place only.”
RELATED: Float secures $50-million credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank to expand its financial products
Float aims to make it possible for businesses to make bill payments and reimburse employees for expenses not paid using its corporate card in a few clicks, reducing the time and money that Canadian companies spend sorting out these payments and simplifying the process.
The company intends to begin rolling out these products over the coming weeks to all of its customers. Khazzam said both will be available to Float clients using the company’s free plans. Float customers on its paid pro and enterprise plans will also have access to them, albeit with more advanced capabilities.
This announcement comes months after Float secured a $50-million CAD credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank to expand its financial products.
Feature image courtesy Float.
