Key Takeaways
- €1 million (~$1.15M) pre-seed raised by Paris-based Cleavr, a 2025-founded AI startup automating the full accounts receivable cycle for finance teams
- 80% task automation achieved, with early clients reporting a 37% average reduction in Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
- 94% of French companies lose money monthly due to unpaid invoices, per an OpinionWay study for GoCardless, while traditional tools automate only 20% of the collection process
- Cleavr plans to use the capital to accelerate its commercial rollout in France before launching European expansion in 2026, with backers including Kima Ventures, Better Angle, Aonia Ventures, Super Capital, and angel investors from Pennylane and Convelio
Quick Recap
Paris-based fintech startup Cleavr has closed a €1 million pre-seed funding round to accelerate the deployment of its AI-powered accounts receivable platform and prepare for European expansion. The announcement was officially confirmed by EU Startups and covered by Finextra and Tech.eu on March 19, 2026.
Founded in 2025 by Baptiste Nassoy, Antoine Grenard, and Arthur Guerin, the company positions its product as a genuine AI coworker, not just a reminder tool, designed to handle the entire cash collection cycle autonomously.
From Invoice to Payment: Inside Cleavr’s AI Workflow
Cleavr connects directly to a company’s ERP or invoicing tool and takes over the full lifecycle of cash collection from Day 1 post-invoicing. The platform automates multichannel follow-ups across email, SMS, and AI-powered voice calls, identifies the right point of contact within a client’s organization (whether that is the accountant, their manager, or the CFO), and handles dispute resolution, credit notes, payment reconciliation, and legal escalation. This marks a step change from legacy software that typically automates only the initial email reminder stage.
The system is designed around continuous learning. It adapts the timing and communication channel for each individual debtor based on historical behaviour, and knows when a file needs to be transferred to a human team member for complex cases. CEO Baptiste Nassoy describes the mission directly: “Our ambition is simple: to give every company the collection rigor of a large finance department. By taking charge of 80% of tasks, our AI guarantees follow-up of 100% of invoices and frees up teams to focus on complex cases with high added value.”
Investor Raphaël Nahum, CFO of Pennylane, underscored the platform’s differentiation: “Cleavr’s approach is unique because it doesn’t just send reminders, it resolves the collection issue thanks to a truly collaborative AI. Cleavr is the missing piece to fully digitize the accounts receivable of European businesses.” Early clients, including payroll software firm Skello and carbon tracking platform Greenly, have already validated the product in the French market.
Europe’s Late Payment Crisis Is Intensifying
The timing of Cleavr’s raise is not accidental. According to an OpinionWay study commissioned by GoCardless, 94% of companies in France report losing revenue every month due to unpaid invoices, and 65% of business leaders expect the situation to deteriorate further in 2026. The structural problem is twofold: late payments squeeze working capital, and the tools that exist to fix the problem are inadequate.
Legacy accounts receivable software has historically automated only the outbound reminder stage, covering roughly 20% of the actual collection workflow. Everything after that first email, the follow-up calls, reply management, dispute handling, reconciliation, and litigation routing, still falls to finance teams manually. For mid-market businesses without dedicated credit control departments, this creates a significant operational drag.
Cleavr’s pre-seed follows a broader wave of European fintech investment targeting the order-to-cash space. EU-funded startups broadly have raised over €70 billion in venture capital, six times the initial EU funding received, and the accounts receivable automation segment is drawing increasing early-stage interest. The company’s 2026 internationalization push will place it squarely in competition with already-established European players, and its ability to move quickly in the French market before crossing borders will be critical to maintaining product differentiation.
Competitive Landscape
AI Accounts Receivable Automation: Cleavr vs. Direct Competitors
The two most directly comparable companies to Cleavr at a similar market stage and focus are Kolleno (London, UK) and Chaser (London, UK). Both target SME and mid-market B2B finance teams in Europe with AI-assisted collections automation.
| Feature / Metric | Cleavr | Kolleno | Chaser |
| Founded | 2025 | 2020 | Pre-2021 |
| Funding Stage | Pre-Seed, €1M | Seed, £4M ($5.4M) | Growth-stage (undisclosed) |
| HQ | Paris, France | London, UK | London, UK |
| Core Automation Scope | Full cycle: reminders, AI calls, disputes, reconciliation, litigation | Omnichannel reminders, cash reconciliation, AI communication channel advice | AI-timed reminders, late payment prediction, payer ratings |
| AI Call Capability | Yes, native AI voice calls | No (recommends channel; human-initiated calls) | No (email and SMS primary) |
| DSO Reduction Reported | Avg. 37% reduction | Not publicly disclosed | Up to 76% for specific clients |
| ERP/Accounting Integration | Native ERP connection | Single platform across receivables | Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and more |
| Geographic Focus | France, European expansion 2026 | Europe, UK, US, Canada, South Africa | Global, SME-focused |
| Agentic Capability | Full autonomous agent, no human oversight required | AI advises, humans execute | AI recommends timing, humans approve |
Strategic Analysis
Cleavr leads the group on autonomous agentic depth, being the only platform of the three that operates the full collection cycle without requiring human checkpoints, including native AI voice calls and legal escalation routing. Kolleno holds a clear advantage in geographic reach and investor credibility at this stage, with £4M in seed funding and an established presence across the US, Canada, and multiple European markets. Chaser’s edge lies in its AI-driven timing and payer intelligence features, having won the “AI in FinTech” award at the Global FinTech Awards and demonstrating measurable DSO reductions of up to 76% for specific clients.
TechnoTrenz’s Takeaway
I will be direct: I think this is a genuinely interesting raise, not because of the size, but because of the timing and the specificity of the bet Cleavr is making.
In my experience covering early-stage fintech, the accounts receivable space tends to attract either enterprise-grade complexity (think HighRadius or Emagia, built for Fortune 500 finance ops) or lightweight reminder tools that help small businesses nudge clients over email. Cleavr is threading the needle between those two worlds, and the fact that it is going after the entire cycle as an autonomous agent, including AI voice calls, dispute handling, and litigation routing, rather than just the reminder layer, is what makes it distinct from what Chaser or Kolleno were doing at the same stage.
I generally prefer to back bets where the problem is chronic, measurable, and genuinely underserved. The fact that 94% of French companies are losing money to unpaid invoices every single month, and that legacy tools only automate 20% of the fix, is as clear a market gap as I have seen in B2B fintech. The investor mix here also tells a story: getting the CFO of Pennylane and the CEO of MyUnisoft as business angels at pre-seed means the people who actually live this problem every day believe in the solution.
