firstminute backs Neno - fixing the "Broken Middle" for Europe's SMEs

Neno has raised a €6.6 million Seed round led by AlleyCorp, and firstminute is thrilled to have been on this journey with them, having co-led their previous round alongside Motive Partners last year.

The Broken Middle

Europe's 26 million SMEs are stuck in what we call the Broken Middle: too complex to run on self-serve accounting software, yet paying €5,000-€14,000+ a year for outsourced accounting and tax services that do the bare minimum on the same decades-old systems of record.

One stack, not six

Neno replaces that whole stack. AI agents handle the day-to-day work - categorisation, reconciliation, invoicing, payments, tax prep - while Neno's own accountants take the judgement calls and provide proactive advice. Embedded fintech across accounts, cards, receivables and payables removes the need to stitch together half a dozen separate tools. One provider, one ledger, one experience.

At the core is what Neno calls an "agentic general ledger": a real-time ledger that pulls together data from business bank accounts, corporate cards, bill payments and receivables into a single system of record. Neno says this delivers 5x faster reconciliation and VAT preparation, saving customers an average of 8 hours of admin a month and 20% on their annual accounting fees.

A team that's lived the problem

Neno's team brings together veterans from B2B fintech, AI and financial services, with backgrounds spanning Juni, Adyen, Mollie, Plaid, Remote, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and BDO. Since launching in the Netherlands in January, Neno has grown to almost 200 customers, onboarding roughly one new paying customer a day, with demand outpacing capacity.

Backing this round

We're especially pleased to have introduced Neno to our good friends at AlleyCorp, who led and wrote up this new round, including Luc Ryan-Schreiber from their investment team. The fund was founded by Kevin Ryan - a good example of how our community helps founders find the right partners at the right moment.

Neno's vision is to become the financial cortex for every European SME: ambient AI managing and closing the books, chasing invoices and preparing payroll and tax, backed by on-demand expert advice for the moments that need a human judgement call.

Huge congratulations to Nick and the whole Neno team on the round.