Yokoy wins the top prize at the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award 2022

Yokoy rises to the top: The Zurich-based startup ranks first at the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award 2022! The fintech company uses artificial intelligence to automate the entire corporate spend and corporate credit card process. More than 300 data points are recorded when reading out a single receipt; the finance department’s fraud control can record over 5,000 data points. The system has been working for supplier invoices since June, and the aim is to cover expenses management entirely. The Zurich-based startup was founded in 2019 by Dr. Devis Lussi (CTO), Thomas Inhelder (CFO), Philippe Sahli (CEO), Melanie Gabriel (CMO), Lars Mangelsdorf (CCO) and was ranked 20th in 2021.

Yokoy’s Zurich headquarter is right next to the lively Toni-Areal. However, there is no sign of this in the open-plan office in the Swisscom building: calm concentration prevails. There is a real barista coffee machine in the entrance area for a caffeine kick. “Practically all our employees have taken a barista course,” says co-founder and CEO Philippe Sahli. 

But it’s getting more crowded around the coffee machine. At the beginning of the year, Yokoy had 120 people on the payroll; just six months later, the fintech start-up already has more than 200 employees at its locations in Zurich, Munich, Vienna, and Amsterdam. 

Yokoy positions itself as a SaaS provider for operational expense management. Co-founders Sahli, Devis Lussi, Lars Mangelsdorf, Melanie Gabriel, and Thomas Inhelder started with the aim of simplifying internal expense management; however, the company’s range of services now includes payment cards for employees and supplier invoice processing.  

Employees take photos of their receipts and upload them to the Yokoy platform, where all relevant information such as the location of the shop or restaurant, its VAT number, the currency used, the amount of the tip, and the total invoice are read out. The subsequent steps are also automated: from posting in the ERP system to reclaiming input tax from the tax office. 

Yokoy’s unique selling point worldwide is the algorithms from its own AI laboratory – they are taught only by humans. The algorithms remember which documents they have recorded correctly and draw useful conclusions for future operations – experts describe this as a ‘closed loop.’ 

More than 500 medium-sized and large companies now rely on Yokoy’s solution – including rail vehicle manufacturer Stadler Rail and logistics group Planzer. As their employees worldwide can scan documents on-site, Yokoy customers now process only 10% to 20% of employee receipts by hand. The finance department is called in only if the system registers an anomaly. “During the pandemic,” says Sahli, “invoices for Zoom licenses skyrocketed in many companies.” 

Yokoy was also able to raise large amounts in its last two financing rounds: the Series A round in 2021 raised USD 26 million and the Series B round, completed just five months later and led by Sequoia Capital, collected an additional USD 80 million. Sahli expects continued annual growth in the region of 400%. 

A lot has happened in the last year, says the 30-year-old. In spring 2020, he appeared with his co-founders on the television show Höhle der Löwen Schweiz: “At that time, we were still looking for venture capital in the mid-six-figure range.” 



This article by Jost Dubacher was first published in the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Magazine 2022.