Pemo

Pemo is a Dubai, UAE-based fintech company that provides an all-in-one spend management platform for small and medium-sized enterprises. The platform consolidates company invoices, expenses, approvals and spending decisions in a single system, combining physical and virtual corporate cards with invoice payment, expense tracking, accounting automation, approval workflows, real-time reporting and a business account. Card transactions are automatically categorized, receipts are captured and matched to transactions, and administrators can set spending limits, restrict merchant categories and build custom approval flows.

The product is aimed at three user groups: finance teams seeking faster reconciliation and centralized visibility, employees who avoid out-of-pocket spending through issued cards and one-tap receipt upload, and owners/managers who want real-time oversight and policy controls. Pemo integrates with accounting tools including QuickBooks, Zoho and Xero, and offers an in-product assistant referred to as Pemo Copilot plus dedicated customer success managers. The company states it is not a bank; customer Pemo accounts are connected to an existing business bank account for funding, and it does not currently offer lines of credit.

The legal entity behind the mobile app is listed as Payables Technology Limited, with an address in Central Park Offices, DIFC, Dubai.

Founding story

Pemo was co-founded by serial entrepreneurs and Rocket Internet and Google alumni Ayham Gorani (CEO), Valerie Konde, Alessandro Duri and Saed Ghorani, who had collectively launched or scaled more than eight ventures including Zalora and Pleo over 15 years. They identified that SMEs in a region where over 90% of businesses are SMEs relied on fragmented platforms and processes for corporate spending, producing irregular expense reports and high costs, and built a single hub for spend management. At launch the founders were supported by a founding team of 20 people from local and international tech companies.

Business model

Pemo sells a software platform combined with issued prepaid physical and virtual corporate cards to SME customers, positioning itself as a spend management provider rather than a bank. Customers connect and fund a Pemo wallet from their business bank account, issue cards to employees, and manage invoices, approvals and reporting through the platform and mobile app. The sources do not state pricing or interchange arrangements.

Traction

Pemo reported surpassing $1.4 billion in transaction volume and working with more than 4,000 businesses as of November 2024. The company website cites more than 10,000 companies, and the Android app lists more than 10,000 downloads.

Latest developments

In November 2024 Pemo raised $7 million in a pre-Series A round led by Augmentum Fintech, with Augmentum Management Partner Perry Blacher joining the board, and said proceeds would fund product innovation and entry into additional markets. Recent app releases added reimbursement archive and restore, submissions on behalf of any spender with audit-trail logging, wallet low-balance alerts, a wallet forecast view and automatic display of top-ups, plus improvements to bills, payments and spending features.