At Uber, Gurjit Pannu remembers moving billions of dollars in cash between bank accounts around the world and quickly realising the importance of effective cash flow management.
Meanwhile, Christian Sobkowski reminisces about his time working in the financial services industry, particularly at PayPal, where he helped expand the company across Europe.
It's no wonder the two decided to join forces as co-CEOs and combine their finance backgrounds to found a company that, in retrospect, would have made Pannu's previous job that much easier.
“Treasury is the department that determines how large companies move cash around the world, so it's clear that it's worth bringing in top talent to rethink how we direct that money,” Sobkowski told TechCrunch.
The result is Palm, which launched in 2023 with the goal of making cash management easier for corporate treasuries. The company today announced a $6.1 million seed round led by Speeinvest and Target Global. The company has built an all-in-one platform that helps companies move money more efficiently across hundreds of bank accounts and subsidiaries.
Palm's platform allows companies to move funds more efficiently among hundreds of bank accounts and subsidiaries, tracking daily cash movements and a setup process that the founders claim can be completed in weeks instead of months with traditional treasury systems. Palm's platform also has automation capabilities that provide customized cash forecasts that the company claims outperform human models at least 75% of the time.
“We had a financial management system, but all our forecasting and cash flow was managed in spreadsheets because the system we were using wasn't reliable enough to build processes around,” Pannu recalls of his time at Uber. “It required a lot of workarounds and costly customizations to meet our requirements. As a constantly evolving business, we just couldn't invest time into that system. [or] Spending money to customize processes within the tool is unnecessary later on.”
For many businesses, making payments is very simple, but the friction and decision-making that goes into arriving at such a decision is “difficult,” Pannu said.
“Treasury teams must capture balances across hundreds of accounts, understand the funding needs of those accounts, determine when payments need to be made to ensure they are made on time, and determine if the appropriate commercial vehicle is designated for the transfer,” Pannu explained. “The team also must ensure that funds follow a complex map across entity structures to ensure compliance.”
In other words, this is a ton of work that could probably be automated.
Palm has customers listed on the NASDAQ and NYSE, but declined to disclose their names. Palm plans to use the funding to expand its team, particularly in the areas of product and engineering. The company's closed beta is also now accepting new customers. The company's beta will end at the end of the year.