Small and medium-sized businesses often encounter challenges when trying to manage their finances; including losing significant amounts of time during complex manual processes – leaving finance teams less time for other areas of business.
One fintech firm looking to address this is Moss, a fully integrated spend management platform. To find out more about the firm, its evolution and the minds behind it, we speak to its co-founder and CEO, Ante Spittler.
Tell us more about your company and its purpose
Moss empowers small and medium-sized European businesses to proactively manage their company spending.
Through the digitisation of finance workflows, the automation of accounting processes, and the provision of transparency and control over expenditures, we ensure customers navigate financial processes easily and effectively. Businesses can close their books with less manual effort, and more actively focus on driving growth and profitability.
What are some of your recent achievements you’d like to highlight?
We have evolved beyond our initial role as a next-generation credit card and expense software to become a fully integrated spend management platform. Our comprehensive platform now encompasses all crucial finance workflows, including budgeting, approvals, pre-accounting automation, compliance checks, and more.
Furthermore, we cover key spend types such as cards, accounts payables, and employee reimbursements. This expansion allows us to provide a holistic solution that addresses diverse financial needs, streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency for our users, who include Pho, Pizza Pilgrims, and Florence.
How did you get into the fintech industry?
My educational background is in finance, and I’ve worked in investment banking, consulting, and venture capital. Finance has always been at the core of my expertise.
The impetus behind creating Moss, however, stems from firsthand experience running a finance organisation, and experiencing all the operational pains and clunky manual processes. It’s historically been incredibly difficult to connect the dots between various software components (such as accounting systems) and financial products (bank accounts, cards, credit, etc.).
This venture is driven by a commitment to alleviate the headaches associated with finance operations, offering a seamless and integrated solution for improved efficiency and effectiveness.
What’s the best thing about working in the fintech industry?
Firstly, the finance sector represents an immense market, spanning various industries, verticals, and offerings.
Secondly, it finds itself in an early stage of re-disruption, where cutting-edge technologies – including AI in accounting enablement – are just beginning to make an impact.
Thirdly, Moss operates at the magical intersection of consumer and business processes (addressing essential ‘jobs to be done’) and financial infrastructure/products.
What frustrates you most about the fintech industry?
When it comes to typically successful business models – particularly those involving payments and banking products – achieving success and positive margins often demands considerable scale. If substantial size and reach are crucial elements for sustainable profitability and effectiveness, then that of course poses its own challenges.
How have your previous roles influenced your career?
Previous roles equipped me with the versatile toolkit I needed to reconsider established frameworks, even in areas where my knowledge wasn’t extensive. This enabled me to navigate unfamiliar territories with confidence and develop a dynamic and adaptive approach to problem-solving.
What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?
Skipping work at Citigroup on a Saturday evening during my M&A internship, and in doing so, meeting my now wife! (We now have two amazing kids!)
What has the future got in store for your company?
Moss has a huge amount to be excited about. We’re in the midst of very strong growth and expansion, and our collective drive is laser-focused on empowering finance professionals and SMBs with the transformative capabilities of our platform. The next two years will be huge for us, and we’re delighted we’ve got such a strong team on board.
What are the next key talking points or challenges for your industry as a whole?
AI in fintech will continue to be a huge talking point, and it is already making a significant positive impact. We’ve seen numerous benefits from AI in finance, including time-saving automation, elevating customer experiences, boosting economic efficiency, and fortifying fraud prevention.
Uniting software with financial products will also continue to be a key opportunity. Standalone financial products are not of much value and are becoming commoditised, when actually a goal should be to create an ecosystem where technology and finance converge harmoniously, offering comprehensive, user-centric solutions that stand out in a competitive and evolving market.
