Late payments are a real financial strain on European businesses. 94% of French companies experience late payments, and most finance teams still handle the follow-up work manually. That’s the exact problem Cleavr, a French AI startup, is building to fix. The startup recently closed a €1 million pre-seed round and its AI-powered accounts receivable automation platform is already showing measurable results for its customers.
The €1M Funding Round:
Cleavr raised €1 million in a pre-seed round alongside Kima Ventures, Better Angle, Another VC, Aonia Ventures, Super Capital, and business angels from Pennylane, MyUnisoft, Convelio, and others.
How Cleavr Actually Works:
Cleavr connects to your ERP and automates your entire cash collection process, from reminders to reconciliation. It handles multichannel follow-ups through email, SMS, WhatsApp, and AI-powered phone calls. It also qualifies debtor responses, detects disputes automatically, negotiates payment terms, and manages litigation through a network of partner bailiffs and lawyers.
The platform’s Cleavr Intelligence layer reads every response from a debtor and decides the next action. If a debtor says they’re paying today, the system schedules a follow-up. If they flag a dispute, the platform pauses reminders and alerts the team. This level of context awareness is what separates it from older tools that just schedule reminder emails on a fixed cadence.
Results From Real Customers:
The numbers Cleavr reports from actual customers are worth noting. Results observed with customers include an 80% reduction in manual tasks, a 40% increase in cash flow, and a 37% reduction in DSO (Days Sales Outstanding).
One co-founder at Greenly noted that the platform helped them increase cash flows by €100K in the first month. The platform is already trusted by companies including Skello, Greenly, Swile, Ramsay Santé, and BDO.
24 Hour Setup & Deep Integrations:
One thing that stands out is the onboarding speed. Cleavr connects to your ERP in a matter of clicks, with customers going live in days rather than months. The platform supports integrations with Pennylane, Stripe, Chargebee, NetSuite, SAP, Sellsy, HubSpot, Odoo, Xero, Qonto, and more. If a tool isn’t on the list, Cleavr’s tech team handles custom integrations at no extra cost.
This matters for scale-ups and SaaS companies that often operate across multiple billing and finance tools. Having one accounts receivable platform that reads from all of them saves a significant amount of reconciliation work.
Built for European Compliance:
Cleavr is ISO 27001 certified, GDPR native, EU-hosted, and uses AES-256 encryption at rest along with TLS 1.3 in transit. Every action on the platform is tracked and exportable, which is useful for audit purposes.
The platform also supports international cash collection across French, English, Spanish, and German, with tone, timezone, and local regulations adapted per country. This makes it practical for European businesses collecting from clients across multiple markets.
Who Benefits Most:
Cleavr is a strong fit for SaaS businesses dealing with involuntary churn from failed or delayed payments, scale-ups that have outgrown manual finance operations, build-ups managing receivables across multiple acquired entities, and finance and professional services firms handling large volumes of invoices. The AI-powered accounts receivable automation approach also works well for healthcare organizations that need automated follow-ups without compromising patient experience.
The Bigger Picture:
Cleavr’s stated ambition is not just to improve accounts receivable management but to eliminate the concept of late payments in Europe entirely, with a long-term goal of becoming the infrastructure layer that streamlines financial exchanges between businesses.
That’s a big target. But the problem they’re solving is real, the early traction is verifiable, and the €1 million in funding gives them runway to expand the product and reach more European businesses.
For startup operators and finance leads looking into automated cash collection software, Cleavr is a practical option to evaluate. The combination of AI-driven follow-ups, deep ERP integrations, and a 24-hour setup makes it accessible even for teams without dedicated collections staff.
