AppZen’s Expense Audit Tech Attracts $50M Round

Expense management and reporting technology firm AppZen announced a $50 million fundraise Monday (Sept. 9) with plans to strengthen its artificial intelligence capabilities.

AppZen secured the Series C funding from hedge fund firm Coatue Management, with Redpoint Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participating in the funding round, VentureBeat reported. So far, AppZen has raised more than $100 million, the report noted.

In a statement, Coatue Management Senior Managing Director Thomas Laffont said that artificial intelligence (AI) enables AppZen to deploy more sophisticated analytics and automation within its expense management solution, which allows businesses to assess expenses, automate expense report audits, and identify savings opportunities.

“AI lets CFOs dramatically reduce spend, comply with policy and streamline process as they pursue their digital transformation goals,” he said.

“Until now, true digital transformation in the CFO’s organization has been limited,” added AppZen CEO Anant Kale, according to the report. “Our AI technology changes that as it … learns from those data, intelligence from thousands of internal and online sources, and the collective feedback from millions of hours of finance professionals’ time.”

The funding round adds to last year’s $35 million fundraise, the news outlet noted. AppZen currently integrates with a range of reporting platforms including Oracle, Coupa, Concur and Workday, according to the report, using data within those solutions to provide business customers with the AppZen Behavioral Index, a proprietary score developed using data accumulated over the course of a business trip.

Earlier this year AppZen announced the expansion of its product offering, adding a feature that allows businesses to automate accounts payable spend analysis and vendor invoice auditing. That feature, too, deploys artificial intelligence to promote compliance, contract management, pricing term management and other performance metrics.

Last month the company released its “The State of AI in Business Spend” report, which found that businesses without an artificial intelligence auditing solution audit only about 10 percent of their total spend.