Stampli Raises $61 Million to Advanced AI-Powered AP Automation

Stampli has raised $61 million to expand its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered accounts payable offering.

The Series D round, led by funds managed by Blackstone, brings the total raised by the company to $148 million, Stampli announced Tuesday (Oct. 3), saying it plans to further tap into the “massive and largely unpenetrated” market for accounts payable (AP) automation.

“Put simply, every business has to pay bills, which means every business has an accounts payable function,” the company said in a news release.

“Sizing the market opportunity, Deutsche Bank Research estimated in 2021 that AP automation and ePayments combined represent ~$70bn in US revenue opportunity, not including the international opportunity, which they estimated could be ~3-5x larger.”

As noted here in July, AP automation is still in its infancy, though companies recognize that the technology is crucial, according to “Solving Accounts Payables’ Top Frictions With Automation,” a PYMNTS and Corcentric collaboration.

“Just 28% of firms report having some automation to support AP workflows in the last 12 months,” that report said. “Seventy percent of firms with less automated processes say they ‘definitely need’ more automation, and 44% of more automated firms say the same.”

The survey also found that every business had experienced friction in at least one processing area in their source-to-pay cycle, with the average company experiencing disruption in 2.8 of eight areas in the source-to-pay continuum.

“At 69%, CFOs are most likely to report facing shipping issues in the last six months, with 19% citing shipping issues as their most experienced issue,” PYMNTS wrote. “Many firms said that other top areas of disruption involved invoice errors and discrepancies and order quality and accuracy disputes.”

Meanwhile, businesses are also leveraging generative AI to clear back-end bottlenecks and streamline B2B eCommerce, as noted here in August.

As Eli Finkelshteyn, CEO and co-founder of eCommerce search and discovery process solution Constructor, told PYMNTS in a recent interview, “wrongly tagged items were a really difficult problem to solve — at least in the past. But the advent of generative AI has proven to be a really good use case when applied to this area.”

He also pointed out that generative AI’s ability to generate novel attributes, fix inaccuracies, and refine search criteria and outcomes, offers the potential to transform product data management in the B2B space, ushering in heightened efficiency and improved commercial customer experiences.