Concur CEO Creates High-Tech Corporate Card With New Startup

Steve Singh, CEO of corporate travel and expense management firm Concur Technologies, has launched a new venture aimed at the world of commercial cards.

Reports in GeekWire on Thursday (March 9) said Singh has launched Center, which provides both hardware and software to businesses via a corporate credit card that has a touchscreen and battery and integrates into software so transactions on the card are automatically linked to accounting systems.

“Nobody has been able to pull this off,” Singh told the publication. “There’s not one product on the marketplace where you have a digitally connected card that’s the size of a regular card.”

Dubbed the CenterCard, the solution will be available for business users in June. The company is also working on partnerships with local banks to be able to issue the cards.

“This business actually has components to it that are not traditional software; it is also a hardware company,” the CEO explained. “This is a sophisticated computer inside this card along with a memory chip along with a battery. A hardware business is very different than what Concur does.”

The startup will generate revenue by interchange fees, reports explained, while Center will provide the budgeting software free of charge to corporate users.

Singh did not tell the publication how much he has invested into the new company and noted that the firm isn’t looking for investors at the moment, though he did not rule out future investment as Center gains traction.

“To actually produce something that has a touchscreen interface with a battery that can las for weeks and has the capacity to update software, it takes real expertise to pull this off,” Singh said of the new product. “That’s why my idea was, if you want to do this, [you] have to go out and find the best people in the world.”

Center currently employees 38 people and is based in Washington and Ontario, according to reports. Dietmar Wennemer, a former executive at Blackberry, serves as COO, with some former Blackberry staff in Ontario joining Center.