Is Lessn Australia's Melio?
Lessn raised big-time from serious backers
Early days yet but traction is kicking in
Special Report: As Xero writes a $3.9 billion cheque for Melio, eyes turn to the next potential rising star in the B2B payments space.
When Xero announced in June it was buying US-based payments platform Melio for a staggering $US2.5 billion (around $3.9bn), the deal received plenty of attention.
It was a bold, strategic swing at finally cracking the US market after years of trying.
And the message was clear – the future of small business software lies in owning the money flow, not just the books.
Melio, despite still being unprofitable, had traction.
With $30 billion in payments flowing through its platform and a slick integration into accounting software, it became essential plumbing for small businesses.
And for Xero, which had spent the better part of a decade laying groundwork in the US with limited success, Melio was the missing piece.
Now, investors are asking: who's next?
Heavyweight backers
That question could well lead us back home – to the Sydney-based Lessn – a fast-scaling B2B payments platform some are quietly calling Australia's Melio.
Lessn recently confirmed it had raised more than $1 million from a tight-knit crew of heavyweight investors.
We're talking serious pedigree here, including: Michael Masterman (the man behind Element Zero and Twiggy-linked ventures), Dean Swan (ex-Monday.com Asia Pacific), Brendon Cook (founder of oOh! Media), and Ian Lennie (Zepto Payments founder), just to name a few.
It wasn't a public raise, and it didn't need to be. But it was heavily oversubscribed.
'We're backed by investors who understand what it takes to grow a FinTech at scale – and they believe in where Lessn is going,' said founder and Chief Growth Officer, David Grossman.
'This capital gets us to cash-flow positive and lets us keep building with focus.
'We're staying lean, staying fast, and staying laser-focused on delivering value to our customers.'
So, what's the fuss about?
Lessn isn't trying to reinvent accounting software.
Instead, the platform wraps around it – plugging into platforms like Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks, then takes care of the grunt work using automation.
Once it's connected, Lessn gets to work: moving money, handling payments, approvals, scheduling and reconciliation – all the clunky admin that tends to pile up on finance teams.
It routes everything through a secure digital wallet, acting as a kind of orchestration layer between accounting and actual payment execution.
It strips out the mess of ABA files and awkward card workarounds, and gives finance teams better visibility and control.
Even suppliers who don't take cards can still be paid by card. For accounts teams, it's less chaos. For bookkeepers and small businesses, it's one less thing to wrestle with.
And it's not just SMEs.
Lessn's platform is being picked up by tradies, construction firms and property managers, all of whom have long been stuck in admin-heavy processes.
It's also helping businesses handle everything from COGS and FX payments to everyday expenses with a single system.
The roadmap is expanding fast, too.
With the fresh capital, Lessn says it will be fuelling its hiring, shipping new features, and strengthening its product moat in a fast-moving payments ecosystem.
Early days, real moves
Lessn's month-on-month growth is currently sitting at around 30%, with users processing an average of $85,000 each per month through the platform.
Those numbers may sound modest in Melio terms, but it's worth remembering where Melio started... and how quickly things can accelerate once product-market fit locks in.
Behind the scenes, the team is clearly fired up.
'Lessn solves real problems for our customers in an inventive way, which is what inspired me to join the team – in what has been the most exciting move of my career,' said Annie Porter, the company's account management and sales support lead.
'Watching David defeat every single obstacle at a relentless pace is where the team derives their determination and belief in Lessn's future.'
Of course, it still has a way to go before hitting Melio's $30 billion run-rate or attracting global M&A suitors.
But the company is keeping things tight, building real customer traction and solving the kinds of problems most businesses still quietly put up with.
Whether it ends up as Australia's next billion-dollar fintech or not, the runway looks long and the wind is at its back.
This article was developed in collaboration with Lessn, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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ABC News
20 minutes ago
- ABC News
Why won't Musk let Tesla EVs power homes?
Sam Hawley: It's an idea Elon Musk hasn't fully embraced just yet, and he doesn't want Teslas used for it. Some electric vehicles are already being plugged in to provide power to homes and even to the grid. Today, energy reporter, Dan Mercer, on the revolutionary technology and why the world's richest man is wary of it. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Dan, this idea that electric cars could power our homes is fascinating, really. So I just want you to explain this for us. And to do that, it's good to talk about a guy called Richard Chapman. He is a petrol head, or we call them rev heads, I think. Dan Mercer: Yeah, indeed. He's an English fella, Sam, and he lives in the port city of Fremantle in Perth in Western Australia. Richard Chapman, car enthusiast: Absolutely adored cars ever since I knew what a car was. Dan Mercer: He says he's always loved his muscle cars, but he's also not the discriminating sort. He loves electric vehicles too. Sam Hawley: Yeah, he's the sort of, in my head, he's the sort of person you don't associate with an electric car. Dan Mercer: No, but you know, it's kind of funny. He loves Top Gear, he loves the smell of petrol, he loves a car that makes a lot of noise. He equally loves these things, which are sort of the polar opposite of cars. The opposite of that in many ways. Richard Chapman, car enthusiast: I never thought I'd quite embrace the EV thing so fully, but for me now, and I've still got a three litre V6 sports car but I look at that as like a horse. Like it's expensive, it's loud, it's very inefficient. It actually doesn't go as quick as the EVs, but that's more about sort of the emotion and real passion of something like a horse. Dan Mercer: There's this popular conception that tends to have these two things in completely separate camps. But Richard really does swear by his EVs. He reckons they're just phenomenal to drive and the technology behind them is mind blowing. Yeah, the measure of it in his case is that he has three EVs, Sam. Sam Hawley: It sounds like a lot. All right, and he is, Dan, really well set up for charging all of these EVs that he has. Dan Mercer: He is. He's one of these guys who just loves getting things to work really well, taking them apart and building them back together again so he understands them intimately. So in his instance, he's got a lot of solar on his roof. He's got batteries in his house and he's got tariffs that are really cheap in the middle of the day when there's heaps of renewable energy sloshing around the grid. What he does is he tries to charge the cars during those daylight hours. That way the energy that's powering the cars is dirt cheap. Either it's coming straight from his solar panels or it's coming from the grid during a time when prices are at their lowest. And for the most part, it seems to work. Sam Hawley: Yeah, okay. So he also likes to have his cars basically fully charged most of the time. And while they're just sitting there at night and not being used, he would actually like to use some of their power, right? But not for driving around. Dan Mercer: Not for driving, no. He's got a couple of batteries fixed to the wall of his garage as flagged. He can get by most of the time fairly cheaply. There are occasions though when his solar and those batteries aren't enough. And that tends to be in winter and the shoulder seasons when there might not be that much sun around but his demand for power might be quite high. And there are times too in summer when he reckons he just needs that much power because it's so hot and he has to run the air conditioning around the clock and the batteries aren't enough. At those times, he currently has to buy the power from the grid in the evening when prices unfortunately cost a fortune. Needless to say, that's something he's pretty keen to avoid. And he says the answer to those problems should be right there in front of him in the form of the energy that's stored in his EV's batteries. Richard Chapman, car enthusiast: When the main house batteries have run out, I wanna then be able to draw off of the electric vehicles that I've got hundreds of kilowatt hours sitting there and I wanna be able to use that back again. Sam Hawley: Wow, yeah. So using the car's batteries to power his home. And the EV batteries, they're massive, aren't they? So that is a possibility, isn't it? Dan Mercer: They are huge batteries, yeah. I mean, an average household battery is probably around 10 kilowatt hours of storage. A big EV battery can be 80 kilowatt hours or more. And as Richard notes, if you've got a car with a battery with that much power, even thereabouts, that's enough to run a typical household for days at a time. Richard Chapman, car enthusiast: You could run your house for, God, completely off grid for probably a fortnight on that. Sam Hawley: Wow, okay. So it sounds like a great idea. Why doesn't he just do it? Dan Mercer: Basically because his carmaker won't let him. There are other reasons, but the biggest one is that his carmaker won't let him. Richard has a couple of Teslas and Tesla just doesn't, at this stage in Australia at least, support customers using their cars to run their homes. It's not the only business that's going on. There's a big EV brand that's cool on the idea, but it's arguably the biggest name. Richard told me, there are ways he can hook his car slash cars up to his house. The problem is those ways aren't legally kosher. So if you do it, you void the warranty on your car. And if your EV costs $100,000, say, you're just not gonna do it. Sam Hawley: So why, just explain further then, Dan, why it is that Tesla doesn't want it to happen. Dan Mercer: Yeah, look, to be fair to Tesla, there are legitimate reasons why the company might be reticent. For starters, it's a fledgling technology we're talking about. It seems to lack a broadly accepted industry standard. Then there's just the physical reality of it. If you're discharging and charging your EV battery a whole lot more than you would normally do, a lot more because you're using it as a quasi household system, then that has an effect on the longevity of the battery. Most batteries, including the ones typically used in EVs, degrade over time as they're used more and more. And so Tesla doesn't want to be held liable for a warranty if the battery is being cycled in a way that wasn't envisaged, that wasn't tested, that wasn't guaranteed by their own standards. There are suspicions though that maybe Tesla has ulterior motives. The company famously sells household batteries and consumers are much less likely to buy those household batteries if their car battery can do the same thing. The thing is, Sam, this argy-bargy has big implications because some people reckon the technology in question could change the energy system completely. It has a few different names, including bidirectional charging, two-way charging, reverse charging, vehicle to grid and others. Ultimately though, it boils down to a simple proposition, not only charging EVs so they can be driven around, but discharging them too. Sam Hawley: All right, well then let's now, Dan, step through how this actually works because there are three main ways of using a car's battery for power, for powering a home, for instance. So let's run through those. Dan Mercer: Yeah, indeed. Well, and apologies for this next bit because it's all quite jargony. Sam Hawley: All right, we've been warned. Go forth. Dan Mercer: The first is what's called vehicle to load or V2L. And that's simply using your car to run things like tools from a power outlet in the car. At a high level, there's so-called vehicle to home or V2H, which is where you use the battery in your EV to run your house. That's what Richard wants to do. And there's evidence some people are already doing it in Australia, for example, during blackouts. And then there's the biggest one of all, which is called vehicle to grid. As the name suggests, it involves selling electricity from your car's battery to the grid at times when it's needed. A flip side to that is not only just selling it, but you can also store electricity in the car's battery, take it from the grid when there's too much supply, which of course is a problem that we're dealing with these days with so much solar around. Vehicle to home and vehicle to grid, especially are not straightforward. And there's a mix of hardware, software and regulatory permissions that are required to turn the energy that's stored in the car battery into something that can be put into the grid and used safely. So there's a whole bunch of technical challenges involved. Sam Hawley: But if you could transfer the power from your EV to the grid, you could make money from that, right? Dan Mercer: You could. How much? There's a big question mark. Presumably there'd need to be strong financial incentives for you to wanna do it. But ultimately this is kind of about trying to entice you to provide energy from your EV to the system when the system needs it. You might reasonably wonder what possible difference a few EVs could make to something as big as the grid, right? But eventually there will be millions of EVs on our roads and collectively they'll represent an enormous amount of storage that sits idle most of the time. Being able to tap into that in an efficient way could drastically reduce our need to generate electricity from sources like coal and like gas. Sam Hawley: Okay, and there are some people that think this could be revolutionary. Dan Mercer: In theory, yes. I spoke to Ross De Rango who used to run energy and infrastructure at the Electric Vehicle Council, which is an industry body. He now works as a consultant and Ross says there's, in his words, a big golden pot at the end of the rainbow if Australia can make bidirectional charging work. Ross De Rango, EV industry consultant: So the opportunity is the earlier closure of coal and gas-fired power stations. The opportunity is lower cost electricity for all consumers in the country. The risk of absence of support for this technology is that those benefits will take many more years to materialise. Sam Hawley: All right, well, Dan, this does all sound pretty amazing actually, but as you mentioned, there are car companies like Tesla that aren't playing ball at the moment. I think a few are, but there's a few roadblocks here. Dan Mercer: I'll be fascinated to see what happens with two-way charging, Sam. Ross De Rango, the ex-EV Council guy, says governments will need to take the reins and corral automakers in particular into a position of support for this. Ditto for the poles and wires companies that control the grid. Ross De Rango, EV industry consultant: So the automakers hold one set of keys, the energy networks hold the other set of keys. In order for vehicle to grid to occur, both of those parties need to put the key in the ignition and turn it on. Dan Mercer: We spoke to Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, for this story, and he's certainly keen to see it happen. He was very keen to stress that he would like to see car makers get on board. Chris Bowen, Energy minister: Well, I certainly encourage car manufacturers to get with the programme. Consumers will want this, and I think consumers will march with their feet. If every car in Australia was electric and people were using it to charge their house or their grid, that's equivalent to five snowy hydro schemes, for example. And it's great for consumers because, as I said, it puts consumers more in charge of their resources. The battery in your driveway will, on average, usually be about five times more powerful than the battery in your garage. Sam Hawley: So, Dan, how long do you think it will take before our cars are powering our homes? Dan Mercer: This is a classic example of an idea where there's a disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality. You know, I've been reporting on energy for a while now, and it always amazes me how often I hear people say bidirectional charging is going to solve so many of our problems, and it's a no-brainer, so it's just going to happen, wait and see. But that's a big assumption, and there are big assumptions right through energy and the transition we're going through right now. Of course, there are many seemingly great ideas that never come to fruition in energy and elsewhere because they get mugged by reality. If you listen to the likes of Ross De Rango and Chris Bowen, this is a revolution that's coming. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. It's just a matter of when. Others aren't convinced. They're just not convinced. Apart from the vested interests of some of these car makers, it's hard to imagine electricity retailers, for example, jumping out of their skins at the idea. Why would they want to pave the way for anything that involves them selling less electricity to you? While those poles and wires companies, they move notoriously slowly. They're heavily regulated. They are heavily bureaucratic. One way or another, there is a tidal wave of new storage that's coming to Australia as battery prices fall and as we get deeper into this transition. And a lot of that is going to be in the cars we drive, for sure. If we can figure out a way of tapping into that fairly and efficiently, then, in theory, everybody wins. Just don't know if you should hold your breath waiting for it, though. Sam Hawley: Dan Mercer is the ABC's energy reporter. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead and Sam Dunn. Audio production by Cinnamon Nippard. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
News.com.au
7 hours ago
- News.com.au
Relief in sight for homeowners as RBA poised for interest rate cut
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Perth Now
8 hours ago
- Perth Now
‘Going to hate me': Pavlich on moving kids out of Perth
Fremantle legend Matthew Pavlich has revealed how his family feel about the move to Sydney while pledging allegiance to his old club as he steps into one of the biggest jobs in football. The 353-gamer was announced on Wednesday as the new chief executive for the Sydney Swans in a shock move that will see the greatest Docker of all time trade in purple for red. Despite building an established reputation in the media after retirement, Pavlich said he belonged back in the league. 'I've said it on the record a couple of times, while I've loved the last 10 years or thereabouts in media and in business, the pullback to a football club or the pullback to AFL was really, really strong,' he said on Nova. 'I have had some opportunities that I've pursued or at least explored, or been approached about over that period, but not one of them was the right timing, or none of them were an opportunity of this magnitude.' Matthew Pavlich (left) and Sydney Swans Chairman, Andrew Pridham. Credit: BIANCA DE MARCHI / AAPIMAGE It wasn't until the prospect of Sydney's top job coming up for the sixth time All-Australian that he seriously considered a move. 'When I got that random text message on a Saturday morning saying 'hey I'm in town... can we have a chat', I said to Lauren (Pavlich), 'we might want to think about this one a bit more seriously',' Pavlich said. 'It moved really quickly over the last three or four weeks to a point where it's an emotional time for us because it's exciting, it's an adventure.' Although a monumental move for the six time Doig Medallist, his children aren't convinced on the cross-country move, with Pavlich saying his kids haven't been thrilled at the idea. '(The news went) down like a lead balloon... they love their lifestyle here, they love their connection with their friends,' he said. 'Maybe Harper is going to hate me, but it's exciting.' Now Pavlich will take over the position from outgoing CEO Tom Harley, who at the end of this season will join the AFL executive as the new league chief operating officer. The 43-year-old said that his allegiance still lies with the club that he played for his entire AFL career. 'I'll always be a Fremantle person,' he said. 'I certainly still have strong feelings for Fremantle and always will, so that'll never leave me, and I am a Fremantle person forever.' Coming in to the role with little experience in the field, Pavlich has big shoes to fill as he takes charge of one of the most storied clubs in the league. The Hall of Famer plans to use his nine-years of experience as the Freo captain as a guide for the new role. 'The way that I'll lead (is) through strong integrity, strong influence on the people, I'll do what I'll say I want to do,' he said. 'I think my style is to be collaborative, but then really quickly, action oriented and decisive. 'I'll use all the experiences I've had, no only in the football life but more recently in the commercial world, to understand that strong stability and strength off the field often drives really high success on the field, and the club's been great at that.'
