Ottimate Raises $160 Million From FTV Capital To Close The Supply Chain Payments Gap Between Vendors And Operators
by The Ottimate Editorial Team
Under leadership of new CEO Barrett Boston, funding will help expand Ottimate’s VendorPay network and footprint across new industries with holistic and vertically purpose-built solutions
Ottimate (formerly Plate IQ), the leading restaurant and hospitality accounts payable (AP) automation and payments platform, announced today that it has raised $160 million in Series B funding from FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity investment firm. With this new funding, Ottimate will accelerate efforts to close the supply chain gap between operators and vendors with its AP automation and payments network. Ottimate also announced the appointment of Barrett Boston, former chief revenue officer of Trinet (NYSE: TNET), to the role of chief executive officer. Boston brings significant experience and a track record of success across vertical applications of technology.
As pandemic-related supply chain woes mount, a gap is growing between vendor expectations of receiving payment and businesses’ ability to process and pay invoices on time. Additional margin pressure due to commodity price volatility and labor shortages means that more businesses than ever are turning to Ottimate’s Zero-Touch AP automation to deploy enterprise-grade back-office automation, pay vendors faster and earn cash back with the VendorPay network, no matter how simple or complex their needs.
Our mission at Ottimate is to continue building holistic, vertically integrated solutions for each industry we serve, powered by world-class engineering and product teams.
Barrett Boston, CEO of Ottimate
Last month, Ottimate announced the launch of VendorPay, a network that allows customers to pay more than 180,000 vendors directly from their AP platform and earn cash back via secure digital payments. Vendors can use VendorPay to track the payment status of their invoices and reconcile payments to outstanding invoices digitally.
“Ottimate’s Zero-Touch AP automation and payments platform has always been designed to meet the unique challenges and needs of the verticals in which we operate,” said Boston. “I’m excited to build on our amazing payments experience, not just for our restaurant and hospitality customers, but also for customers in other verticals such as grocery, professional services, retail and more. Over the course of my career, I have appreciated the tremendous value in building products that uniquely fit the customer’s needs. Our mission at Ottimate is to continue building holistic, vertically integrated solutions for each industry we serve, powered by world-class engineering and product teams.”
Ottimate’s post-pandemic growth has been exceptional. Since March 2020, Ottimate has added over 8,000 customers and processed over $2 billion in invoice payments through the VendorPay network as of October 2021 — a testament to the secular shift in favor of digital payments as a response to the pandemic. The surge in demand for digital payments and back-office automation in the restaurant and hospitality industries has also driven Ottimate’s dominance in AP automation with over 50,000 invoices processed daily from 20,000 business locations.
Ottimate’s vertical-first approach to building capabilities and integrations has made it a leading AP automation tool across the restaurant and hospitality sectors, from Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants and national fast food chains to hotel groups and country clubs.
“When I started at Tender Greens, our AP department had three people,” says Sean Skuro, vice president of finance and accounting at national fast-casual chain Tender Greens. “Today, even as our business grew from 17 to 24 locations, (Ottimate) has cut our bookkeeping costs in half and allowed us to move forward with an AP team of just one employee.”
With the investment from FTV Capital, Robert Anderson, partner at FTV Capital, and Gary Weber, vice president at FTV Capital, are joining Ottimate’s board of directors, alongside existing board members and Ottimate co-founders, Bhavuk Kaul and Ram Jayaraman.
“As longtime investors in business automation and payments technology, it’s exciting to see the rapid pace of innovation today across the AP automation and B2B payments landscape as digital platforms upend manual processes and legacy systems,” said Rob Anderson, partner at FTV Capital. “With its unique approach of building vertically holistic, market-leading software, (Ottimate) has proven its leadership in the restaurant and hospitality sectors and is well poised to serve new industries urgently seeking ways to automate back-office operations. Furthermore, the shift to digital B2B payments represents a tremendous growth opportunity, and we are thrilled to partner with (Ottimate) as they continue to innovate.”
“From the outset of our discussions, it was clear that FTV Capital offered the ideal deep payments sector expertise needed to help us expand our footprint in the $3.3 trillion B2B middle market payments landscape,” said Kaul. “In the coming weeks and months, we will launch an exciting pipeline of vertically-specialized products and services to holistically address vendor/customer pain points in our target industries. With the backing of FTV Capital, (Ottimate) begins a new era of success, in alignment with a business partner that shares our vision and possesses a unique ability to help us accelerate our growth.”
Kaul, who has led Ottimate as chief executive officer since 2014, will now transition to the role of president. In this role he will provide long-term continuity, institutional expertise and strategic guidance as the company scales.
About Ottimate (Formerly Plate IQ)
Ottimate is AP automation AI that provides a more innovative way for AP managers, approvers, controllers, and CFOs to work through the entire invoice lifecycle. With mature deep learning capabilities powered by AI, Ottimate learns your business and AP process down to the line item, supporting a custom approval and payment workflow. Ottimate eliminates over 90% of the manual accounting process and provides insights into invoices and spending, helping finance professionals uncover opportunities for growth. This means more strategic business decisions for CFOs and a better day-to-day for the entire team. Don’t just automate AP. Ottimate it. To learn more, visit ottimate.com.
About FTV Capital
FTV Capital is a growth equity investment firm that has raised nearly $4 billion to invest in high-growth companies offering a range of innovative solutions in three sectors: enterprise technology and services, financial services, and payments and transaction processing. FTV’s experienced team leverages its domain expertise and proven track record in each of these sectors to help motivated management teams accelerate growth. FTV also provides companies with access to its Global Partner Network®, a group of the world’s leading enterprises and executives who have helped FTV portfolio companies for two decades. Founded in 1998, FTV Capital has invested in more than 125 portfolio companies, including Docupace, Derivative Path, EBANX, LoanPro and Vagaro, and successfully exited/partially exited companies including Enfusion (NYSE: ENFN), InvestCloud (recapitalized), Strata Fund Solutions (acquired by Alter Domus), Sunlight Financial (NYSE: SUNL), VPay (acquired by Optum) and WorldFirst (acquired by Ant Financial). FTV has offices in San Francisco, New York and Connecticut. For more information, please visit www.ftvcapital.com.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP advised FTV Capital.
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