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Pleo lays off 50 employees in latest round of cuts. Job cuts were reportedly concentrated on engineering and data roles. Expense management fintech Pleo has laid off around 50 of its staff, according to reports. Last week's job cuts mostly affected those with engineering and data roles, including senior level staff, sources told Tech.eu. Laid off employees were based in Pleo's home market Denmark, as well as the UK and Germany, the site reported. The cuts were across the fintech's "offering" team, which includes product, tech, design and data roles and housed about 300 people before the cuts. A spokesperson for Pleo says the company has been undergoing "significant" transformation over the past year. "The proposed changes to our offering teams recently announced are part of this transformation," the spokesperson says. "They are designed to strengthen focus, simplify decision-making, and accelerate product delivery for customers, while reflecting the increasing role of new technologies in how product and technology teams operate." In September last year, Pleo's CTO of business expense solution Meri Williams told Sifted AI would not replace junior engineers. "I'm certainly not waving goodbye to half my engineers and hoping that AI will replace them," she said. "I'm trying to make sure that they keep up and use it when it makes sense." The Copenhagen-based startup also laid off about 100 employees in its commercial team in November last year and 15% of its workforce in 2022. Founded in 2015, Pleo offers company cards with spending limits for individuals and teams as well as automated expense reports for employees. The fintech became a unicorn in 2021 when it raised $150m at a $1.7bn valuation, becoming Denmark's eighth unicorn and reaching the milestone faster than any of the others, in just six years. Damisola Sulaiman is Sifted's fintech reporter, based in London. She writes Sifted's weekly Fintech newsletter. You can find her on LinkedIn

Pleo launches AI agents for autonomous spend management. June 11, 2026 Pleo, Europe's spend management platform built for financial strategists, has unveiled a suite of AI agents designed to handle routine financial tasks autonomously, allowing finance leaders to concentrate on strategic decision-making rather than administrative work. The launch comes as research cited by the company points to mounting pressure on finance teams: nearly half of UK companies report that existing processes slow them down, while approval workflows are described as so unwieldy that operating at pace has become a genuine challenge. At the same time, 78% of finance professionals believe a thorough understanding of AI will be essential to the future of the profession, yet the majority acknowledge that skills, training and confidence in the technology remain seriously underdeveloped. The new capabilities span five specialised agents. The Policy Agent is already live, applying company spend rules in real time, flagging exceptions and directing approvals to the appropriate person. The Pleo MCP, due to launch next, captures card transactions, locates receipts, drafts memos, applies accounting codes and submits expenses. The AP Agent handles invoices from email through to payment tracking. The Treasury Agent monitors cash flow and flags overspend risk ahead of time. Finally, the Accounting Agent reconciles accounts and closes books, escalating only items that warrant human attention. Beta testing across these capabilities is set to begin in July 2026, with a broader rollout to follow. Finance teams will be able to access Pleo's agents directly within the Pleo app and web platform. In addition, the company's MCP server acts as a connecting layer, enabling teams to use tools such as ChatGPT Codex, Gemini, Claude Cowork and Copilot to query spend data, approve expenses and run reports without switching between platforms. Pleo describes itself as Europe's first spend platform built specifically for financial strategists, developed by a CFO to eliminate the fragmentation caused by scattered tools and manual processes. Pleo chief executive officer and founder Jeppe Rindom said, "Agentic AI gives finance leaders a clear path out of the admin and back to the work that requires their strategic judgment. We're focused on unifying users' full financial ecosystem-policies, budgets, vendors, approvals-while keeping data encrypted and controlled to move towards true autonomous spend: agents deciding independently, always within your guardrails. That's when finance leaders get their profession back" Pleo chief product and technology officer Marija Nakevska said, "Finance software is shifting from passive dashboards to AI agents that actively work on behalf of users, safely and transparently. Over the past decade, Pleo has built one of Europe's richest datasets from its customer base of 40,000 businesses, revealing patterns in how and where they spend, and where risks emerge. This intelligence drove Pleo's evolution from expense management to full cash management. "Now we're channeling it into the workflows finance teams need most. They want AI working for them, delivering better control... We're seeing real appetite for AI features, but paired with a critical question: 'How does this use my data, and do I stay in control?' The MCP server foundation answers both concerns. It enables advanced AI capabilities while keeping customers in control of their data." Enjoying the stories? Investors. The following investor(s) were tagged in this article.

Pleo announces new agentic capabilities, changing the face of financial management and decision-making. * Artificial Intelligence * 11.06.2026 10:24 am Pleo, Europe's first and most trusted strategic finance platform, today announces a suite of AI agents that handle routine spend management autonomously, so finance leaders can focus on decisions rather than administrative tasks. Finance teams are under growing pressure: 49% of UK companies say their current processes slow them down, and leaders describe approval workflows as so cumbersome they struggle to operate at the required speed. Meanwhile, 78% believe the future of finance teams and professionals depends on the comprehensive understanding and use of AI, yet 68% say AI skills, training and confidence are severely lagging. Pleo's agentic AI addresses this gap. Starting with beta testing in July, Pleo is moving toward a model where specialised agents execute routine work autonomously, surfacing only the exceptions that genuinely need human judgment. Jeppe Rindom, CEO and Founder of Pleo comments: "Agentic AI gives finance leaders a clear path out of the admin and back to the work that requires their strategic judgment. We're focused on unifying users' full financial ecosystem-policies, budgets, vendors, approvals-while keeping data encrypted and controlled to move towards true autonomous spend: agents deciding independently, always within your guardrails. That's when finance leaders get their profession back" From workflows to agents Pleo is building specialised agents to handle financial workflows: * Policy Agent - Currently live agent that enforces company spend rules in real time, flags policy exceptions and routes approvals to the right person * Pleo MCP-Next to launch feature that captures card transactions, finds receipts, writes memos, applies accounting codes and submits expenses * AP Agent - Processes invoices from email, codes them, schedules payment and tracks approval and payment status end to end * Treasury Agent - Monitors cash flow, tracks spend against budget and surfaces overspend risk before it happens * Accounting Agent - Codes transactions, reconciles accounts and closes books, flagging only what needs human review Two ways to access Pleo AI The Pleo agents will live throughout the Pleo app and web experience. Additionally Pleo's MCP server acts as the infrastructure layer that lets finance teams connect their preferred AI tools - such as ChatGPT Codex, Gemini, Claude Cowork, and Copilot - so they can directly access data in Pleo. Finance teams can query spend, approve expenses, prepare bookkeeping, and run reports without switching tools. Marija Nakevska, CPTO, Pleo adds: "Finance software is shifting from passive dashboards to AI agents that actively work on behalf of users, safely and transparently. Over the past decade, Pleo has built one of Europe's richest datasets from its customer base of 40,000 businesses, revealing patterns in how and where they spend, and where risks emerge. This intelligence drove Pleo's evolution from expense management to full cash management. Now we're channeling it into the workflows finance teams need most. They want AI working for them, delivering better control... We're seeing real appetite for AI features, but paired with a critical question: 'How does this use my data, and do I stay in control?' The MCP server foundation answers both concerns. It enables advanced AI capabilities while keeping customers in control of their data." A key differentiator of Pleo's agentic experience is the conversation design. Today, many AI models mimic human emotions in the responses which can mask issues. Pleo's agentic experience is designed for competence, not charm. This is part of Pleo's vision to build trust at every layer.