Airbase Pitch Deck (2021): 12-Slide Series B Deck

Airbase’s Series B deck is a masterclass in narrative positioning, opting for a text-heavy memo format over traditional visual slides. Raising $60M in 2021, the company focused on the 'mid-market' (defined as 50-1000 employees on slide 2) and argued that the real value in fintech lies in software workflows rather than payment interchange. The deck explicitly distances Airbase from 'corporate card wars' by positioning cards as a commodity and software as the strategic 'system of record.' While it lacks a traditional team slide or specific 'ask' amount, it provides a transparent summary of perf…

Key takeaways

• Airbase defines its target mid-market as companies with 50-1000 employees on slide 2.
• The company claims a 90.12% gross margin for the financial year ending Jan 31, 2021, on slide 10.
• Airbase positions itself as 'workflow-driven software first and a fintech company second' on slide 5.
• The deck identifies two competitor categories: legacy players like Bill.com and emerging players like Brex and Ramp on slide 7.
• The company reports a team of 96 employees spread across 9 countries as of April 2021 on slides 10 and 12.
• Airbase explicitly rejects the 'interchange-only' revenue model, opting for a subscription-heavy split on slide 7.
• The deck omits a traditional team slide, though it mentions having 54 people in product development on slide 6.
• Future growth is tied to five adjacent opportunities including Budgeting, CLM, and SaaS management on slides 11 and 12.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Airbase use a memo format instead of a standard pitch deck?

At the Series B stage, investors are looking for deep strategic clarity and evidence of a 'system of record' status. The memo format allows Airbase to explain complex workflow problems that simple icons and bullet points cannot capture. It forces the reader to engage with the company's philosophy on why software is more valuable than the underlying payment rails.

How does Airbase differentiate itself from Brex and Ramp?

According to slide 7, Airbase views competitors like Brex and Ramp as being 'corporate card centric' and focused on making money from interchange. Airbase differentiates by charging a subscription fee for its software, arguing that the true pain point for finance teams is the workflow (approvals, GL categorization) rather than the card itself.

What are the key financial metrics disclosed in the deck?

Slide 10 provides a 'Progress so far' summary. It notes a 90.12% gross margin for FY2021, a net burn of $9M against $30.5M raised, and $21.5M remaining in the bank at the time of the memo. Specific ARR and customer counts are redacted as 'X' and 'Y' in this public version.

What is missing from the Airbase Series B deck?

The deck lacks a dedicated team slide featuring founder bios or previous exits. It also lacks a specific 'Ask' slide detailing how the $60M would be allocated. Furthermore, there are no detailed case studies or testimonials, though it mentions that 'not a single customer' was lost due to lack of value (slide 10).

What is Airbase's definition of the mid-market?

Airbase specifically defines the mid-market as businesses with 50 to 1,000 employees. This is noted in a footnote on slide 2. They argue this segment is underserved because they are forced to use siloed tools like Expensify and Bill.com which do not talk to each other.

Airbase pitch deck: the facts

Company

Airbase

Year

2021

Stage

Series B

Slides

12

Sector

Fintech

Airbase pitch deck PDF

The full Airbase deck is embedded on this page and can be read slide by slide in the browser — no download or account required. Each slide is covered in the breakdown above.

What the Airbase pitch deck was used for

This deck is Airbase’s long-form, memo-style Series B fundraising document used in 2021 to raise $60M for its spend management platform, focused on mid‑market companies managing non‑payroll spend. It frames Airbase primarily as a workflow‑driven software company that integrates payments to replace multiple siloed tools with a single system of record. The narrative emphasizes why spend management has remained unsolved, how modern payment infrastructure now enables an integrated solution, and why the company’s breadth-plus-depth platform is strategically superior to point solutions. The deck itself largely avoids transactional details (amount, valuation, explicit use of proceeds), which are known from external funding announcements rather than from the slides.

Business model: Airbase provides a unified spend management platform for businesses, combining workflow-driven software with payments to manage non‑payroll corporate spend such as vendor payments, software subscriptions, T&E, and corporate cards.

Round

Series B

Year

2021

Raised

$60M Series B

Lead investor

Menlo Ventures

Investors

Menlo Ventures (lead), Craft Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, First Round Capital, Quiet Capital, Box Group, Webb Investment Network, Selected startup executives and angels including leaders from Uber, Plaid, Carta, Okta, and OpenGov.

Founded

2017

Founders

Thejo Kote

Headquarters

San Francisco, California, United States

Industry

Fintech; corporate spend management / spend management software

Raising: Series B growth capital to expand product breadth and depth, add features for larger clients (advanced approvals, cross‑border payments), and strengthen its mid‑market spend management platform.

Total funding: Approximately $91M raised as of the June 2021 Series B announcement.

Use of funds as presented: Reported uses included expanding services to larger clients by adding advanced approval workflows and cross‑border payment capabilities and deepening ownership of spend-related workflows across payment methods.

What happened after the Airbase deck

Airbase successfully closed a $60M Series B financing in June 2021, led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Craft Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, First Round Capital and others, at a $600M post‑money valuation, and continued to operate and expand its spend management platform thereafter.

• Raised a $60M Series B round in June 2021 led by Menlo Ventures, at a $600M post‑money valuation.
• Brought total funding to approximately $91M as of the Series B announcement.
• Publicly shared the Series B investment memo, which became a reference example for long-form fundraising decks in fintec

What the Airbase deck got right

• Strong problem framing around fragmented non‑payroll spend. The deck offers a clear, detailed explanation of the non‑payroll spend problem in mid‑market businesses, highlighting the pain from siloed and fragmented tools and positioning Airbase as the integrated solution.
• Compelling workflow-first product philosophy. Airbase emphasizes that it is a workflow-driven software product first, with payments as an enabling layer, which differentiates it from card-centric fintech competitors and aligns with software-like economics.
• Broad, integrated platform thesis. The deck articulates a breadth-plus-depth platform strategy—managing 100% of non‑payroll spend in one place and reusing common infrastructure (approvals, GL syncing)—making its vision more ambitious than point solutions.
• Attractive margin profile and hybrid revenue model. Airbase highlights very high gross margins (90.12% for FY2021) and a mix of subscription and financial services revenue, signaling attractive unit economics despite handling payments.
• Effective narrative memo format for fundraising. The memo-style deck is tightly argued and narrative-heavy, reportedly enabling the company to raise $60M quickly, which suggests the format effectively conveyed strategy and conviction to investors.
• Strategic system-of-record positioning for spend. The deck positions Airbase as the system of record for all spend, emphasizing sticky and strategic real estate in the finance stack and a path to adjacent products and global expansion.

What could have been stronger

• Key traction metrics are obscured with placeholders. The shared version of the deck redacts or parameterizes key traction metrics (customer count, ARR, ARPU, and revenue mix) on the “Progress so far” slide using placeholders like X and Y, limiting an investor’s ability to verify scale and growth directly from the document.
• No clear fundraising ask or use-of-funds in the deck itself. Commentary on the deck notes that there is no explicit “ask” slide outlining how much capital Airbase is seeking or how it will be deployed, even though the company ultimately raised $60M; this omission can make it harder for investors to quickly understand round size and use of funds from the deck alone.
• Competitive differentiation is argued conceptually rather than quantitatively. While the memo strongly differentiates Airbase’s workflow-driven approach from point solutions and card-centric competitors, it offers limited quantitative evidence comparing adoption, savings, or efficiency gains versus Brex, Ramp, or legacy tools, leaving the competitive advantage mostly conceptual.
• Limited discussion of product gaps or execution risks. The deck asserts that Airbase is the system of record and occupies strategic real estate in a business, but does not clearly break out current product limitations or areas where the platform is still being built out, which could obscure execution risk for investors.

How an investor would read this deck

What draws attention

• Strength and clarity of the problem framing around non‑payroll spend fragmentation in mid‑market companies.
• Positioning Airbase as a workflow-driven software product first, with payments as an enabler, which distinguishes it from card‑centric fintech competitors.
• Platform breadth-plus-depth thesis: one system to manage 100% of non‑payroll spend, reusing common workflow and GL-sync infrastructure.
• High reported gross margins (90.12% for FY2021) and a business model that combines SaaS subscription revenue with financial services revenue.
• Claim that Airbase is the system of record for all spend, giving it a strategic foothold for future adjacent products and global expansion.

Risks that stand out

• Redacted performance metrics in the shared memo mean investors must rely on separate materials to assess true scale and growth, increasing information risk.
• Airbase’s thesis that breadth-plus-depth in one platform will beat specialized point solutions depends on sustained product execution across many modules simultaneously, which can stretch resources.
• Corporate cards are described as a commodity with card issuance platforms widely available, which may intensify competition and pressure financial services margins.
• The global spend management opportunity is large but operationally complex (currencies, entities, regulations); misexecution could slow growth or erode margins.
• Competition from well-funded players (Brex, Ramp) and entrenched point solutions (Bill.com, Expensify) could drive up CAC and compress pricing in the mid‑market segment.

Questions this deck invites

• What were the exact customer count, ARR, and growth rates at the time of the Series B (values redacted as X and Y in the memo), and how have they evolved since March 2021?
• What is the detailed breakdown of subscription vs. financial services revenue and how sensitive is the business to changes in interchange or payment economics?
• How does Airbase’s unit economics (CAC, payback period, net dollar retention) compare to point solutions like Bill.com and card-led competitors like Brex or Ramp in the mid‑market segment?
• What concrete case studies or quantified savings can demonstrate that a unified workflow platform delivers materially better outcomes than the status quo stack for mid‑market finance teams?
• What is Airbase’s roadmap and progress toward solving global spend management (multi‑currency, multi‑entity, cross‑border compliance), and how defensible is that position versus global competitors?

What founders can take from the Airbase deck

• A narrative-heavy memo format can successfully raise a large growth round when it clearly explains the problem, market structure, and product philosophy, even without a traditional slide deck.
• Positioning a fintech company as a workflow-driven software product first—and treating payments as an enabling layer—can create a more durable differentiation than focusing on card rewards or interchange alone.
• Explaining why a problem has historically remained unsolved (in this case, immature payment infrastructure and siloed tools) helps investors understand timing and why now is the right moment for the platform.
• Articulating a breadth-plus-depth platform thesis—managing 100% of non‑payroll spend with reusable workflow and accounting infrastructure—can be more compelling than pitching another point solution in a crowded market.
• Clearly stating product principles (best-in-class across modules, continuous investment in workflows, and rejection of silo rationalization) can reassure investors about long‑term focus and guide interpretation of roadmap tradeoffs.
• Demonstrating very high gross margins and a mix of subscription and financial services revenue signals software-like economics even for a fintech handling payments, which is attractive to growth-stage investors.

Airbase pitch deck: common questions

What kind of pitch deck did Airbase use for its $60M Series B, and how was it structured?

Airbase used a narrative-heavy, memo-style deck rather than a traditional slide pitch to raise its 2021 Series B round, in which it secured $60M led by Menlo Ventures at a $600M post-money valuation. The deck focuses on explaining the spend management problem, Airbase’s product principles, competitive positioning, and strategic opportunity rather than on typical fundraising mechanics like a big “ask” slide.

Who invested in Airbase’s 2021 Series B and what were the key round terms?

Airbase’s Series B was a $60M financing announced in June 2021, led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Craft Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, First Round Capital and others. The round valued the company at approximately $600M post‑money and brought total funding to about $91M.

What problem does Airbase’s Series B deck say the company is solving?

The deck explains that mid‑market businesses struggle with non‑payroll spend (marketing, subscriptions, T&E, employee programs, etc.) because they rely on multiple siloed tools, including email/Slack workflows, standalone approval systems, AP tools, and corporate cards. Airbase positions itself as a single workflow-driven platform that deeply integrates approvals, vendor payments, cards, and accounting syncs into one system of record for all non‑payroll spend.

Which customer segment does Airbase target in this Series B pitch deck?

According to external reporting and the deck commentary, Airbase defines its core buyer segment as the ‘mid‑market,’ typically companies with roughly 50–1,000 employees. The deck emphasizes that this segment has complex spend workflows and fragmented tooling but is not yet served by holistic platforms that can manage all non‑payroll spend globally.

What traction and financial performance does Airbase highlight in its Series B deck?

The deck itself focuses more on strategy than on explicit financial metrics, but it does include a slide summarizing progress: at the end of March 2021 Airbase reports X paying customers, ending ARR of $Y, an average revenue per customer with a defined range, a subscription vs. financial services revenue split, and a 90.12% gross margin for FY2021. However, specific numeric values for customer count and ARR are redacted or parameterized (X, Y) in the shared version of the memo, so external readers cannot see the exact figures.

Sources

Funding and outcome facts on this page were researched on 2026-08-22 from the pages below.

• Airbase raises $60M as the corporate spend market segments...
• Airbase snares $60m in Menlo Ventures-backed Series B raise
• Airbase's $60M Series B: Spend Management Growth
• Airbase Investment Memo to Raise Series B - Alexander Jarvis
• Airbase raises $60m as the corporate spend market segments, matures (via Passle)
• Airbase Used This Pitch Memo to Raise $60 Million From Startup...
• Airbase raises $60M, aims for larger clients | Payments Dive
• Airbase - $60M Early Stage Venture | Startup Intros

Airbase pitch deck slides

What each slide of the Airbase pitch deck says

Slide 2

Introduction Every business spends money. A simple way to classify all the money spent by a business is into payroll and non-payroll dolars. Payroll spend is managed by the wellestablished category of payroll software. The non-payroll dollars include marketing spend, software subscriptions, T&E, employee engagement, and the number of other areas in which a typical business spends money. In mid-market businesses,' managing the non-payroll dollars is incredibly painful because of the siloed and fragmented nature of the tools used. This i the problem Airbase solves. Airbase replaces multiple categories of tools tpically used by mid market businesses to manage non-payroll spend, with a single c…

Slide 3

In practice, the finance and accounting team care about three simple step: 1 But, what they have to deal with in the tra Make sure there is a good prt o Pay the vendc and an implement Correctly cate An archaic and per work that involve sding & rding tin the general good decisions based Airbase is a reimagining, from first principles, how spend management should work in any business.

Slide 4

Why hasn't anybody solved this problem so far? The primary reason the landscape of tools has remained in silos until recently is due to the lack of maturity ofthe underlying payment infrastructure. s important to understand that solving the spend management problem the right way involves deeply integrating workflow-driven software and payments into a single product Historically, tools in this domain have fallen into three buckets: © Standalone software workflows that donit touch the money: examples include homegrown pre-approval workflows using emails, Slack, Google Forms etc., or more formal systems like Procurify or the PO module in an ERP system like NetSuite o Payment systems that addre…

Slide 5

Product Principles Please watch a demo of the Airbase platform o get a better sense of why taking a first-principles approach to solving the entire spend management problem fundamentally changes spend culture ina business, and leads to significant time and money savings In addition to familiarizing yourself with how the product works, its important to understand how we approach the product development process and the principles that guide us. We're a workflow-driven software product first and a fintech company second We believe that almost all of the value we can offer to our customers comes from the workflows enabled by our product. Payments are an important enabler, ut just that - an enab…

Slide 6

Offer a best in class solution across every product area We fundamentally reject the rationalization that siloed products exist because they are "best of breed and platforms can't truly solve the whole problem. We're committed to delivering the breadth and depth of the. solution that allows mid-market companies to manage 100% of their non-payroll spend in one platiorm 'without any compromises when they move from point solutions. We've been able to do that rapidly because 'when you approach spend management in a holistic way, it allows you to reuse a lot of the common platform elements (E g. pre-approval workflows, and the infrastructure to sync transactions to muitiple 'general ledgers). An…

Slide 7

team, which is more than half the team and we worit stop hiring in that area for the foreseeable future. We're convinced that our thesis that customers value breadth and depth in one platform has been validated, 'and we're going to double down on that approach to keep our lead in the market. Competition & Our Strategy We classify competitors into two categories: o Established, legacy players: nine times out of ten, prospects we engage with are using point solutions like Bill com, Expensify and a corporate card. This status quo approach to solving the proble i the primary competition we face in the market, and most of our sales effort is spent showing prospects that there is a much better wa…

Slide 8

but we expect financial services revenue to grow faster as transaction volume increases across payment methods on the platform. That makes it a no-brainer for us to continue investing deeply in owning the spend related workflows. We occupy very strategic real estate in a business Airbase s the system of record which contains every detail of the lifecycle of how a business spends money. This is very sticky and strategic real estate and valuable on its own, but it allows us to targeta number of large adjacent opportunities in the future. Refer to the last section for how we think about this. Corporate cards are a commodity product With the availabilty of mature card issuing platforms, anybody…

Slide 9

Solving the global spend management problem is a huge opportunity The trend of building globally distributed teams has been accelerating over the last few years, but the pandemic brought it forward by 10 years. Companies at every stage of growth are now hiring around the 'world, which means the spend management problem is global. If dealing with 5-6 systems to manage spend in the US is hard, adding 2-3 additional systems per intemational entity and meeting the needs of a distributed workforce is a big challenge for finance and accounting teams. It's a huge opportunity to deliver asingle global platform to manage every dollar spent by a business across currencies and locations. We have all t…

Slide 10

Progress so far You will get a good sense of the business we're building from the metrics deck and operating model that will be shared with you. Here is a high-level summary of how we're doing At the end of March 2021, we have X paying customers and an ending ARR of $Y. We make an average of $X per customer (ranges from about $X to $Y). The split between subscription and financial services revenue is X%/Y%. Gross margin for the financial year ending Jan 312021 (FY2021) was 90.12%. We expect t o be about 84% at the end of the current financial year, since we're hiring aggressively in our onboarding and support teams. But, it will limb back up to above 90% in 2022/FY2023, We entered FY2021 wi…

Slide text above is read directly from the Airbase deck PDF embedded on this page.

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