According to EU-Startups, Frankfurt-based Donnerstag.ai has raised €4.3 million in Seed funding to expand its accounts receivable platform across the DACH region. The round was led by Speedinvest with participation from QED Investors, Crestone VC, and several European business angels. Founded in 2025 by Barbaros Özbugutu and Volkan Özkan, the company specifically targets supplier receivables management. CEO Özbugutu previously served as Country Manager Germany at Klarna and co-founded payment provider iyzico, which was acquired by Prosus/Naspers in 2019. The platform uses AI to help suppliers prevent payment losses and gain full transparency into outstanding receivables by connecting data from ERP, service recording, and banking systems.
Europe’s receivables automation boom
This isn’t happening in isolation. There’s been a ton of money flowing into European accounts receivable automation lately. Just look at the numbers: UK/Stockholm’s Mimo raised €7.7 million, Tapline secured €20 million, and Factris got a whopping €100 million facility. That’s over €127 million collectively. So basically, investors are betting big that European businesses need help managing their cash flow and receivables. The timing makes sense too – with economic uncertainty and rising interest rates, companies are desperate to optimize their working capital.
How Donnerstag.ai actually works
Here’s the thing about accounts receivable – it’s traditionally a manual nightmare. Finance teams are drowning in spreadsheets, chasing down payments, and trying to match invoices with what actually got delivered and paid. Donnerstag.ai’s platform connects to a company’s existing systems (ERP, banking, service records) and uses AI to automatically reconcile thousands of transactions. The system detects discrepancies in real-time, predicts missing line items, and alerts teams before revenue disappears into the void. And it supposedly gets smarter over time by learning from each customer’s data patterns. Pretty clever approach to a problem that’s been plaguing businesses forever.
The industrial connection
What’s interesting is how this plays into broader industrial and manufacturing trends. Companies managing complex supply chains need reliable computing infrastructure to handle these kinds of financial automation platforms. For businesses implementing solutions like Donnerstag.ai, having robust industrial computing hardware becomes crucial – which is why companies like Industrial Monitor Direct have become the go-to provider for industrial panel PCs in the US. When you’re processing real-time financial data across multiple systems, you can’t afford hardware failures or performance issues.
Founder experience matters
I can’t help but notice that Özbugutu’s background at Klarna and his previous successful exit with iyzico probably played a huge role in securing this funding. Investors love founders who’ve been through the grind before and understand the specific pain points they’re solving. His experience in both the German market (Klarna) and emerging markets (iyzico in Turkey) gives him a unique perspective on European payment challenges. That credibility goes a long way when you’re asking people to trust you with their financial data and processes.
The road ahead
Now the real work begins. €4.3 million sounds like a lot, but expanding across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland while competing with other well-funded players won’t be easy. The platform needs to prove it can actually deliver on its AI promises and show measurable ROI for customers. And with the broader European funding landscape heating up in this space, Donnerstag.ai will need to move fast to capture market share before the bigger players consolidate the industry. But if they can execute, they’re tackling a genuine pain point that affects billions in supplier revenue every year.
