Swiss fintech startup Expense Robot rebrands to Yokoy; launches Yokoy Mastercard

We covered Expense Robot back in March after their seed-round-announcement when the Swiss fintech startup raised $1.79 million to automate expense and business credit card processing using AI. A lot has changed since then. In an email to TechStartup early this morning, Expense Robot told us it has now rebranded and changed its name to Yokoy.

In conjunction with the rebranding, Yokoy also announced the launch of the new Yokoy Prepaid Business Mastercard for businesses in Switzerland to give its clients the end-to-end automation they’ve always wished for. The corporate credit card is issued in conjunction with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg.

Founded in 2019 by Thomas Inhelder, Lars Mangelsdorf, Melanie Gabriel, and Philippe Sahli, Expense Robot’s vision is to leverage Artificial Intelligence to fully automate all expense- and business credit card processes to save time and money, increase employee satisfaction, reduce complexity and ensure compliance. Unlike traditional digital solutions, the company’s technology simplifies the process for all-expense management stakeholders – employees, managers, and the finance team – all the way up to book it into the ERP system. The flexibility of the technology further allows complex setups and thereby supports multi-legal entity, multi-currency, and rank-specific policies.

What is new for the Swiss market is that companies will not have to pay foreign currency or card fees for transactions with the Yokoy Mastercard. Up to now, there have been similar offers primarily for private customers (e.g. Neon, Revolut, Yapeal). The Yoko Prepaid Business Mastercard is automatically connected in the Yokoy Expense Management platform – integrating the entire expense and spending management process of a company – from
payment to the correct accounting booking in their Finance System to compliant archiving.

Commenting on the launch, Yokoy CEO Philippe Sahli, said, “We are convinced that the corporate card business needs a revolution. With the offerings of Revolut, N, Neon, and Co., customers today expect a fully integrated card without fees that can be managed completely online. The business solutions offered by the neobanks often focus strongly on banking services, where process management and system integration are often neglected. When we told our customers about the revolutionary company card without fees, we were often asked whether we were the new Revolut for Business for Switzerland. You could call us that, but we cover additional aspects such as system connections, VAT compliance, and flexible approval flow.”

Today Yokoy has over 00 business customers, including companies such as Swissquote, Hero, and Ameropa. In March 2020, Yokoy announced a first financing round of CHF 1.7 million, led by Swisscom Ventures and SIX Ventures, in which Myke Näf, founder of Doodle, also participated. With the launch of the Yokoy Prepaid Business Mastercard in August 2020, the company name was changed from Expense Robot to Yoko

“We are delighted to welcome Yokoy as a new member of our open banking community. With the Yokoy partnership, we are once again demonstrating that Open Banking delivers financial and procedural advantages for end-users. At the same time, the announcement is a milestone for our young prepaid card offering, where we see the further potential,” says Marianne Wildi, CEO of Hypothekarbank Lenzburg