Finance automation platform Ramp has recently completed the acquisition of Venue, a procurement startup backed by Sequoia Capital. This strategic move is aimed at bolstering Ramp’s procurement capabilities and expanding its reach as it addresses inefficiencies in the broader financial technology landscape.
Venue, founded in 2022, had focused on simplifying the procurement process for businesses by developing an intuitive solution. This solution allowed employees to easily request necessary items while providing finance teams with visibility into all requests and associated spending. Within a year, Venue gained traction, supporting businesses with an average of 500 to 1,000 full-time employees and raising $1.2 million in financing.
With the acquisition, Ramp intends to automate and streamline procurement workflows and vendor management. The Venue team will lead projects focusing on customized intake forms, flexible approvals, purchase order management, and the implementation of artificial intelligence for vendor management.
In addition to the acquisition, Ramp is unveiling improvements to its procurement product. These enhancements provide businesses with more control and insight into employee spending, accelerate review cycles, and identify opportunities to save on IT and software expenses.
The new features include bi-directional integration with providers like Ironclad, dynamic intake forms, purchase order enhancements, collaboration tools, an activity feed, and seat intelligence that compares software use to seats purchased.
Ramp’s accounts payable product currently processes over $10 billion in annualized AP volume. The growth of the platform is attributed to businesses’ desire to consolidate various disconnected tools. In 2023, there was a notable adoption of data-informed spend management controls, bringing transparency and oversight to the spend management landscape.
As an example, Uber for Business integrated with Ramp and expense management provider Brex in December 2023 to automate receipt matching for Uber rides and meals, streamlining expenses and saving time for companies.
