This funding round makes Cledara the first participant of the current Techstars London cohort to have raised and was the first ever investment made by the Anthemis and BBVA Partnership.

Cledara is for businesses to manage purchases, especially subscriptions, and provide the infrastructure for teams to collaborate with those working remotely and in different offices or countries. By tracking the 'who' and the 'why' behind each purchase, Cledara provides organisations with instant insight into their spend and the power to manage spend before it happens.

Every year, companies waste more than $20 billion on duplicate, unused or forgotten SaaS. There are dozens of companies that help sellers of subscription software optimise its sale, but until Cledara there were no solutions for the buyers of software to manage its purchase.

The money raised from this funding round will help Cledara expand the team, particularly in product, engineering and UX. Cledara will further enhance its core platform to deliver on its mission of improving financial and operational health for companies by enabling shared visibility and ownership of purchasing information among teams.

Cristina Vila, founder and CEO of Cledara, said: “We are delighted to welcome Anthemis, BBVA and Chris to Cledara. Anthemis has been a fintech pioneer from the very beginning, and their experience, combined with BBVA’s expertise, resources and reach will massively accelerate Cledara’s growth.”

Farhan Lalji, Director at Anthemis, said “We first met Cristina in Méribel at our annual Anthemis Hacking Finance Retreat back in 2014. As a member of our ecosystem, we have seen her evolve over the years into a very strong founder with a clear vision that we're excited about. At Anthemis, we are passionate about building businesses in white space areas and Cristina's solution will help companies scale faster and more efficiently, which is a no brainer for us to support. We are thrilled to support Cledara on its journey to growth”.

Gustavo Vinacua, BBVA, said “Bringing the combined expertise of the two organisations to bare for the benefit of Cledara is the essential value proposition from our BBVA-Anthemis Venture Creation Studio”.

Eamonn Carey, managing director at Techstars, said “Techstars companies are both producers and consumers of thousands of subscription software products. Cledara meets an important and growing need to help make subscription software more manageable for those that buy it and provides the necessary infrastructure for the SaaS industry as a whole to grow”.

“Attracting top tier investors is just reward for the Cledara team who have achieved so much so quickly”.