May 4, 2021
3
MIN READ

Mastercard selects Cledara for Mastercard Start Path

Cledara News

We are thrilled to announce today our acceptance into Mastercard Start Path, an award-winning startup engagement program which enables later-stage tech startups such as Cledara to rapidly scale through unparalleled access to Mastercard’s technology, expertise and worldwide ecosystem of customers and partners.

Cledara joins Start Path along with 6 other forward-looking startups and will partner with Mastercard through a six-month program to co-innovate and uncover opportunities with tailored support from Mastercard experts and leveraging their worldwide brand, reach and scale.

Joining the program at this stage of our journey at Cledara is a wonderful validation of our singular focus on helping growing companies manage their software investments, and we are eager to get started!

Our conversation with the Mastercard Start Path team over the past months inspired us to continue to analyze the backdrop of the environment in which our customers operate, and what we see has only magnified over the past three years since Cledara was founded.

The SaaS revolution =  SaaS chaos**

The move to the cloud over the last two decades has been nothing short of stunning: 70% of organizations using cloud services today plan to increase their cloud spend in the wake of the pandemic, and SaaS adoption is predicted to grow 42% from 2020 to 2022 alone.

Businesses have absolutely chosen to empower their teams to drive growth with their preferred software, but the flipside of this is the resulting pain companies have begun to feel with managing all this SaaS.

We’ve seen first-hand how fragmented software data across a company is the cause of tens of hours of unnecessary administrative work every month, even for relatively small companies. Worse, because no one has the full picture of the software in a business, this wasted time translates into wasted money and processes that don't scale. In fact, globally, it’s estimated that 30% of SaaS spend is wasted on forgotten, unused and duplicate SaaS. With SaaS now one of the largest expenses in most tech businesses, you can start to see the sense of urgency we feel in helping companies get a hold of their software investments.

Inclusion - across multiple dimensions**

As a female-founded and led fintech startup, at Cledara we are also very interested in the topic of inclusion across multiple dimensions. Among their successes, Mastercard’s Start Path program has built a global portfolio of elite startups with a number of female-led ventures. These women have collectively raised over $1B in capital to grow their businesses. As part of Start Path, Cledara will have first-hand insight into how Mastercard works across their organization and ecosystems to foster a more inclusive digital economy. Initiatives like Start Path Empodera, a Mastercard and USAID business accelerator focused on promoting womenʼs entrepreneurship and financial inclusion in Colombia, and Start Path portfolio companies like Ellevest, a female-founded digital-first investment platform built by women, for women, are great examples of how Mastercard is working hard to level the playing field for entrepreneurs globally.

We couldn’t be more excited to get started working with the Mastercard team to drive several strategic initiatives to grow awareness of Cledara among businesses in new geographies and work with their network of industry fintech experts to further build out our business ecosystem. We will keep you abreast of our six-month journey in the program as we actively contribute, engage and learn. Stay tuned!

Contents

Contents

Subscribe to our newsletter

Receive the latest insights in your inbox

Share this post

Subscribe to our newsletter and stay informed on the latest SaaS insights

Explore more

Explore more

New naming rights partnership agreed, The Cledara Abbey Stadium announced

Cledara enters into a five-year sponsorship agreement with Cambridge United, which will see the football club’s Abbey Stadium renamed The Cledara Abbey Stadium.
Read more

Announcing Cledara's Free Software Management Package for Finance Teams

We’re excited to announce that you can now use Cledara’s platform for free as well as changes to our paid packages and cashback available.
Read more

Announcing Onboarding, Your control center for software access

Cledara's Software Management platform just got a major upgrade. With Onboarding, now you can manage access to every tool, streamline workflows, and improve compliance—all from one central platform. No more fragmented systems, manual processes, or visibility gaps.
Read more

Announcing Benchmarks & Copilot: Your AI-Powered Software Procurement Expert

Cledara is proud to introduce two transformative features: SaaS pricing benchmarks and the world’s first AI-powered SaaS Procurement Copilot. These innovative additions place expert software procurement capabilities into the hands of every team.
Read more

What's New Discover Spend Insights, Team Budgets & More

Discover Cledara’s new features like actionable software spend insights, team budgets, OKTA SSO & more.
Read more

Cledara Announces New Partnership with Modulr

Cledara adds exciting new product features to the product roadmap and reaches new countries across Europe following a new banking partnership with Modulr
Read more

SaaStock Barcelona September: Sales Effectiveness and Fundraising

Here's a recap of our latest event for founders in sunny Barcelona.
Read more

Cledara Product Updates: August 2022

Check out our latest product updates!
Read more

Cledara’s 4th Anniversary

Discover how we celebrated an incredible milestone with the entire team.
Read more

Cledara Product Updates: July 2022

Here’s a summary of our latest product updates. Enjoy!
Read more

Cledara talks with Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc founders

What does it take to organize the world’s best trail runs? We sat down with the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB®) founders to find out.
Read more

The 45 Hottest Startups in the Netherlands

From Crisp and Bots to TestGorilla and Lightyear, the Netherlands hosts an eclectic and exciting group of startups. We’ve pulled together the ones to watch in 2022 and beyond.
Read more

SaaStr Europa 2022 Recap

Check out highlights from our time last week at Europe’s largest SaaS event.
Read more

Customer Success at a Fast-Growing Startup

The following blog is written by Marta and Katie, our newly formed Customer Success team that has quickly transformed how we engage with our wonderful customers.
Read more