The control over Pennylane does not sit where a cap table would suggest. The founders' preference shares carry 51 percent of the votes whatever the capital split, and they cannot be sold until the end of 2032. The biggest shareholder owns only about 14 percent of the capital. It is a quiet piece of engineering, and it tells you how the company thinks.
Pennylane started in January 2020 in Paris, at a strange moment to launch anything. Arthur Waller, who became chief executive, built it with several co-founders, among them Quentin de Metz and Thierry Deo. The idea was to give small businesses and their accountants one shared financial operating system: bank feeds, invoices and cash flow in one place, so that the accountant stopped chasing the owner for receipts.
Yet the founders sold only about five percent of the company, and the voting shares keep control with them.
The first money was modest. Four million euros arrived in May 2020. A 15 million series A followed in January 2021 and was topped up by another 15 million six months later, when Sequoia Capital joined. That year the team did something unusual for a software company. It briefly ran its own accounting service, then sold it to an independent firm in 2021, choosing to stay a platform that accountants could trust rather than a rival to them.
That choice paid off. Fifty million euros came in January 2022. In February 2024, 40 million at a billion-euro valuation made Pennylane a unicorn. Seventy-five million more followed in April 2025 from Meritech and CapitalG, with annual recurring revenue then claimed at 60 million euros. By December the press reported about 115 million.
The company stopped short of the story you might expect next. In January 2026 a record 175 million euro round led by TCV, with Blackstone Growth alongside, valued it above 3.5 billion euros. Yet the founders sold only about five percent of the company, and the voting shares keep control with them.
For a first-time founder the lesson is double. Pick the side of the relationship you will serve, as Pennylane did when it handed its accounting service to a firm. And decide early how much control you will keep, because the terms you accept in the first round are the ones you live with in the tenth.