Peaky, the Ghent-based AI platform for financial planning, has raised €1.1 million in a seed round led by JK Invest. Imec.istart and a group of Belgian angels are also joining in. The startup will use the capital to accelerate its commercial growth and further build out the platform, so finance teams see changes in the business before they show up in the numbers. "We're building the infrastructure to scale without surprises," say the founders.
A business changes every day. Finance is often the last to know what's moving, and the first that have to explain afterwards why the numbers don't add up. Results only land after the monthly or quarterly close, by which point something has usually been drifting for weeks already. An employee who leaves, a client who churns, a colleague out sick on the sales team: these are signals that only translate into falling sales or disappointing revenue months later.
"I spent years as a freelance CFO for various scale-ups, and it was always the same frustration," says Ser Cappelle, CEO of Peaky. "When the Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal, everyone in operations and sales knew within the day that deliveries would be delayed by weeks. Finance only saw it show up in the numbers a month later. By then, you've already lost weeks. Given today's geopolitical situation, you can no longer afford to wait until the end of the month to make decisions."
Signals
From that experience, Cappelle built the financial planning platform Peaky, together with Guus De Graeve (CTO), Willem Vos (COO) and John-Alexander Kolmus (CDO). The platform connects to accounting packages like Exact Online, Yuki and QuickBooks, to CRMs and ERPs such as Odoo and SAP, and to tools like Stripe and Chargebee. That turns the financial plan into a living system that continuously shows what's changing and what it means for the numbers.
Alongside internal data, Peaky also pulls in external signals, such as currency swings. When an assumption drifts from reality, Peaky links that change back to the financial plan and shows the potential impact. The finance team then decides what to do with it. Step by step, that builds a system in which AI agents analyse what happened, while also helping teams understand what's changing and what it means for the future.
Beyond signals, Peaky also offers a financial infrastructure that understands how a business actually works: which assumptions sit behind the plan, how departments and KPIs connect, and which historical context still matters. AI agents operate on that layer, taking over more and more classic tasks, from reporting and analysis to forecasting and scenarios. That combines the flexibility of Excel with the context, automation and intelligence of AI.
Experienced team
Cappelle, De Graeve, Vos and Kolmus have known each other for more than 10 years, going back to Netlog, Twoo, Ablo and eventually Tinder. Cappelle built up 16 years of experience in finance, from accounting roles to freelance CFO assignments at various scale-ups. Peaky was founded a year and a half ago and now counts clients including Aikido, Tout Bien, Mobility Plus, The Harbour and Proplanner. Earlier this year, Peaky was named 'Best FinTech Startup of the Year' by Fintech Belgium.
Ready for Europe
To speed up its growth, Peaky is now raising €1.1 million from JK Invest, the Brussels venture capital fund focused on early-stage B2B SaaS investments. Accelerator imec.istart, which had already come on board earlier, is joining again, alongside the Paris-based angel collective Super Capital. About fifteen Belgian angels are also participating, including Roeland Delrue of Aikido and Thierry Bruyneel of Delaware. Peaky wants to grow the team with additional developers and will use the capital to further build out the product and scale up marketing activities.
"In Europe, nobody is really doing what we do today. Ninety percent of the financial planning market sits in the US, and many existing solutions still start from after-the-fact reporting. We're building the infrastructure finance will run on: a system that understands your company's context, remembers what's changing and puts AI agents to work taking over more and more classic finance tasks. As flexible as Excel, but continuously connected to the reality of the business. We want to become the European standard for companies that want to scale without surprises," concludes Guus De Graeve, CTO of Peaky.