Round raises $6 million to scale AI-powered finance automation platform

The European fintech sector continues to attract significant investor attention as AI-powered solutions reshape how finance teams operate. From treasury management to accounts payable and payroll, startups are racing to automate the operational backbone of corporate finance — and investors are backing the most promising platforms with conviction.

London-based Round has secured $6 million in seed funding to scale its AI-powered finance automation platform, which streamlines treasury management, accounts payable, and payroll for growing businesses. The round was led by Alstin Capital, with participation from Backed VC, Love Ventures, and existing investor Passion Capital, which led the company’s $2.1 million pre-seed round in October 2024. Notably, approximately 10 per cent of Round’s existing customers also invested in the round, alongside angel investors including Paul Forster, founder of Indeed.

Alstin Capital leads seed round as AI finance tools gain traction

The investment signals growing confidence in AI-native finance infrastructure. Alstin Capital, an early-stage venture fund focused on B2B software, led the round as Round demonstrated strong product-market fit among fast-growing companies. The platform is already used by notable clients including Cleo, the AI-powered financial assistant, and PostHog, the open-source product analytics company.

Founded in 2023 by Pac O’Shea and Hayyaan Ahmad, Round has built a platform that functions as an AI operator for finance teams. The technology automates invoice processing, approval routing, and payment execution for accounts payable, while its AI Treasury Manager agent automatically identifies optimal rates and sweeps funds across connected accounts. The platform integrates with more than 2,000 UK and EU bank accounts and offers access to BlackRock Money Market Funds yielding above 4.2 per cent on idle cash.

“We are building for the finance team of the future, one that understands the importance of automation,” said Hayyaan Ahmad, co-founder of Round. The company reports that customers achieve a 75 per cent reduction in invoice processing time and a fourfold improvement in yield on idle cash, with full onboarding completed in as little as five days.

Alongside the funding, Round announced two new products: an Agentic Workflow Builder that converts natural language descriptions into automated financial processes, and Autonomous Payroll, which streamlines the complete payroll cycle from file upload to payment execution.

European AI finance automation market gathers momentum

The raise comes at a time of accelerating investment in AI-powered finance tools across Europe. Accounts payable automation and treasury management represent a combined addressable market worth tens of billions of dollars globally, yet the majority of mid-market finance teams still rely heavily on manual processes, spreadsheets, and fragmented software stacks.

Round’s approach — combining treasury, AP, and payroll into a single AI-native platform — positions it against a fragmented competitive landscape of point solutions. The company’s ISO 27001 certification and FCA-regulated custodian partnerships with Wealthkernel, BlackRock, and Barclays provide the compliance framework that enterprise finance teams require.

The fresh capital will be deployed towards product development, expanding the engineering and go-to-market teams, deepening integrations with banking and financial systems, and scaling infrastructure. Round also plans to invest in community initiatives, including finance-focused hackathons and workshops designed to build its presence among CFOs and finance leaders.

With total funding now exceeding $8 million, Round is well-positioned to capture a meaningful share of the AI finance automation market as European businesses increasingly seek intelligent, end-to-end platforms to replace legacy financial workflows.

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