French Accounting Platform Pennylane Launches In Germany, Plans 100 Hires

Founded in 2020, unicorn Pennylane is a financial management and accounting platform serving startups, SMEs, and their accountants across Europe.

It offers an “all-in-one” platform that centralises accounting and financial management in a single shared workspace, helping businesses and accountants collaborate more efficiently.

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Pennylane centralises accounting, expense management, invoicing, and financial reporting in a single workspace, freeing accountants from chasing data. It also leverages GenAI and offers an API ecosystem with integrations like Shopify and HubSpot to help clients work across multiple systems.

The company employs over 900 people and serves 6,000+ accounting firms and 600,000+ SMEs in France.

In Germany, it will compete with market leader DATEV. Pennylane has set up its German HQ in Munich, with an office in Berlin and sales teams in Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, and Cologne.

Tobias Janiesch, head of German operations, said Munich was chosen partly to stay close to lead investor Sequoia.

He said: “Sequoia is in Munich, one of our lead investors, so it made sense to be closer. And the Munich ecosystem in tech with OpenAI there is also growing."

On why Germany is a potentially ripe market for Pennylane, he said: “It’s a big market, with 80,000 accountants. Germany is one of the most complex accounting markets in the world - yet also one of the slowest in terms of digitalisation."

Future international expansions may include Poland, Spain, and Belgium, but the UK is considered unlikely due to the dominance of Sage and QuickBooks, Janiesch said.

Earlier in 2025, Pennylane raised €75 million in a round co-led by Sequoia Capital, Alphabet’s CapitalG, and Meritech Capital Partners, with participation from DST Global.

About Pennylane

Pennylane is a financial operating system for European SMEs, centralizing accounting and finance in one platform. Entrepreneurs manage invoicing, expenses, cash flow, and profitability, while accountants handle bookkeeping and taxes. The platform saves time, supports better decisions and enables third parties to deliver personalized financial services.