September 14 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian-founded payments management platform Payhawk said it set foot in the U.S. market by opening an office in New York and launching a credit card for clients straddling the transatlantic and European markets.
The move means that Payhawk will now offer its spend management solution as well as a mix of credit cards and debit cards to U.S. customers, becoming the first and only business in the space to do so, the Bulgarian start-up said in a statement earlier this week.
The entry into the U.S. market is seen as an essential part of the company's growth strategy and follows a year of expansion which saw Payhawk grow its revenue by 524% and its workforce by 250% to date.
In March, the fintech became Bulgaria's first unicorn when it reached a valuation of 1 billion dollars (1 billion euro) after closing an extended funding round led by US investment firm Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Payhawk's pool of prospective scale-up and enterprise clients is wide, comprising more than 2.6 million businesses with a headcount of over 100 in the UK, Europe and the U.S.
"A significant proportion of scaling companies in Europe have US operations, and before today, they were forced to use multiple credit card issuers, making the controlling and reconciliation process for finance teams a nightmare. The same is true for US companies with European operations where the number of currencies and payment systems can be daunting," Payhawk co-founder and CEO Hristo Borisov said in the statement. He added that the company's US Visa credit card product already has a waiting list of over 10% of the company's customer base.
Payhawk's credit card has credit limits of up to $250,000, customisable spend policies and offers up to 1.5% cashback. The first customers are set to go live in October.
"Our goal is to focus on providing the best solution on the market for global scale-ups and enterprises. Naturally, these businesses have an international presence, and we want to cater for that," Borisov noted.
Payhawk, which is currently headquartered in London, is now active in 32 countries.
($ = 1.0003563 euro)