BCR Seed Starter, the first Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) fund created by a Romanian bank, announces a new investment of 500.000€ in Profluo, a startup that offers a financial platform that digitalizes and automates document processing and accounting flows through intelligent virtual agents that can scan, process, and reconcile large volumes of documents.
“We are glad to announce a new BCR Seed Starter investment in a startup with a clear vision and development plans grounded in the realities of today’s business landscape. Profluo’s team impressed us with their strong combination of strategic discipline, passion for technological innovation, and deep market insight. Profluo’s solution stands out not only because of its product excellence, but also because of the way it addresses genuine pain points in the daily operations of finance and accounting departments. The work and progress they’ve accomplished so far also confirms their potential for rapid growth, and we are proud to support them on their journey toward becoming a leading player in accounting process automation.” - Carmen Dibuș, CEO, BCR Seed Starter.
The 850.000€ founding round, led by BCR Seed Starter, accompanied by Inspire Capital and additional investors, will support the company’s plans to scale the solution internationally in the near future.
“This new funding round represents more than just a natural step in Profluo’s evolution – it’s a confirmation of our investors’ trust in the potential of our team and the technology we are now building and developing. We will use the capital raised to strengthen key departments, enabling us to scale rapidly at the international level. At the same time, our mission remains the same, aligned with our values with which we started this journey: to redefine, through relevant, accurate, and immediately applicable Artificial Intelligence, the way in which financial and operational departments handle complex and massive flows of documents and financial-accounting data, bringing efficiency and transparency, thus freeing up people's time for more creativity and strategy. We are the only platform whose AI solution already understands the European "e-Invoice" mandate, with the specific variants and protocols for each jurisdiction, which makes us extremely useful for companies with operations across Europe that want, beyond immediate compliance with ViDA legislation, a modern and agile platform for the rapid automation of financial document operations. We’re proud to be creating and developing, here in Romania, a company that strives for global impact and that attracts people who believe in our vision.” - Bogdan Năforniță, CEO & cofondator Profluo.
Profluo processes financial and accounting documents 20 times faster and at a cost of 6 times lower per document compared to manual methods. The platform operates like a virtual accounting team in which each digital agent is assigned to a specific workflow, such as detailed accounting, treasury management, commercial controlling, customized automatic approvals, employee advance payments and reimbursements. Powered by multiple machine learning engines and vision language models, all trained on nearly 4 million real documents from clients, Profluo reads all the details from those documents and validates them with precision and learns very quickly how to continue based on the extracted and validated information.
“We see Profluo as a valuable opportunity in a market segment with huge potential for transformation. The global market of AI based solutions for the automatization of financial and accounting processes is one of the largest and most dynamic in the enterprise software sector, and the need that Profluo addresses is universal: every company, regardless of size or industry, processes financial documents and can benefit from the efficiency and accuracy brought by this technology. BCR is testing the Profluo platform in various areas with large volumes of financial documents involved, with significant potential for use in multiple areas. The Profluo team built a solution that combines AI and a deep understanding of the challenges finance teams face, offering a scalable platform that is quick to integrate and has a direct impact on customer productivity. From our perspective, this is the ideal formula for international expansion and for setting a new standard in how organizations manage financial workflows.” - Adrian Roșoagă, Chief Investment Officer, BCR Seed Starter.
Profluo was founded in 2016 by Bogdan Năforniță, a specialist with an experience of over 25 years in both the corporate and entrepreneurial environments, and Cosmin Merișescu, who coordinates and manages software and agile web projects for more than 20 years. The startup was born out of their shared passion for technology and innovation and has ever since evolved into a leading Romanian solution that introduces a revolutionary approach: a system capable of learning from accounting documents and automating processing.
Launched in January 2024, BCR Seed Starter invests up to 600.000 euros in technology startups seeking seed-stage funding. The company also aims to support startups that optimize banking processes, help expand BCR’s service portfolio, support the digitalization and automation of the Romanian economy, or even integrate ESG standards, thereby contributing to a more sustainable financial ecosystem.
More about BCR Seed Starter: www.seedstarter.ro