Expense management and invoice provider Chrome River has raised
$100 million in Series D financing from Great Hill Partners, adding to the $17
million Series C financing it gained in January 2014. The expense management
firm will use the funds to innovate products, expand globally and bring in
large United States-based enterprise clients.
“Some funds will be used for recapitalization, meaning a
portion of the funds will go to some of the shareholders, but most of it is to
help us grow the business,” Chrome River CEO Alan Rich told BTN.
Rich said travel managers want to provide employees with a
consumer user experience similar to consumer software's while maintaining the
controls and restrictions of enterprise software systems. “They want to roll
out something and not seem as if, ‘Finance is shoving this down our throats,’
but instead say, ‘Finance is rolling out this cool new tool to make our lives
better,’ ” Rich said.
He added, “People want agile businesses where they can react
quickly, efficiently, change policies, react to compliance issues, add a
subsidiary and divest a company without the slow-pace change,” he explained.
Chrome River, he said, concentrates on “the business rules of technology and
configurable systems" that allow customers to implement their own changes.
With the new funds, Chrome River will build its product
line, in particular mobile technology and subproducts of its primary expense
and invoice solutions. “We’re doing a lot of work on the invoice space, new
purchase-order functionality, electronic invoicing and doing things across the
area there,” Rich said. "Some things are still in the idea stage.”
The firm also plans to expand throughout Europe from its U.K. footprint. “We’ve added resources in Canada, which has been a really strong market for us, and we’re exploring other areas, as well,” Rich said. Chrome River also intends to build its base of large U.S. enterprise customers, adding to wins like the clients that migrated to Chrome River from IBM's Global Expense Reporting Solution.