Financial Technologies

Basware was originally founded as Baltic Accounting Systems in 1985. Its headquarters is based in Espoo, Finland and it is one of the finest fintech companies in the country. The company offers worldwide services and it has started operations in more than 50 countries. Currently, Basware has established its market in six continents. Its major markets are the Nordic countries, Europe, Russia, and North America but apart from these regions, it has also expanded to the Asia-Pacific region. Basware sells enterprise software for various financial processes and recently it has also achieved Green Supply Chain Award for two years consecutively.

About Basware

The network of Basware is very vast and it connects more than 2 million active buyers and suppliers with the company. Basware is known for offering cloud-based e-invoicing and purchase-to-pay solutions to its worldwide customers. According to Klaus Andersen, CEO of Basware Corporation, one of the unique selling points of the company is the ability to cope with the complexity of a global business while operating smoothly. The main customers of Basware are mostly global large enterprises. Basware also has small industrial clients but it becomes difficult to work with them since their entire system is not digitized yet. The company is also focusing on its relationship with its partners. Hence it has launched the Partner Center of Excellence for better implementations.

History

When Basware was founded, it was a subsidiary of an American corporation that was established in Finland. But after five years, the Finnish management team decided to buy the company and thus it was spinned off from the American conglomerate. This Finnish team of Basware included Hannu Vaajoensuu, Ilkka Sihvo, Kirsi Eräkangas, Antti Pöllänen and Sakari Perttunen. After it became an independent company it started working to roll out its first commercial product. It was the company’s first Financial Management Software and it was released in 1992. The company launched its second product in 1997 which was their first Invoice Processing Software. This product became very famous especially because it had the feature of Scan & Capture Workflow for Invoices. This also helped Basware land its first international client from Sweden in 1999.

Basware decided to go public in 2000 and hence it got listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. In the following years, the company introduced the first electronic invoicing, intelligent OCR, archiving, and much more. Eventually, it was able to land customers from Norway, Denmark, and other European countries. In the next two years, the company planned to expand into Australia, USA, UK, and Central Europe.

Acquisitions

Basware started acquiring companies in 2005 and started with Iocore, a Norway-based company. In the same year, it also acquired Finnish Trivet Software and in 2006 it acquired Finnish Analyste followed by Digital Vision Technologies Ltd in 2007. In 2008 the company acquired Contempus AS and in 2009 it acquired Itella’s Norwegian invoice automation solution business. In 2016, Company acquired a US-based company called Verian. It is a leading provider of cloud-based solutions for the financial sector.

Klaus Andersen – CEO of Basware

Kalus Andersen is a very experienced person in the executive position with more than 20 years of experience in the field. He joined Basware in 2018 as the Chief Technology Officer of the company and after a year he was appointed the CEO. Before joining the company, he worked at several companies. From 1996 to 2008, he worked at SimCorp where he was the Head of SimCorp Dimension, Research, and Development. He also served as the Senior Vice President, IMS Development. From 2008 to 2014, he served as the Managing Director of SimCorp UK Ltd. Prior to joining Basware, he was the Executive Vice President of Global Engineering at Itiviti AB.