Daniel Kniaz is co-founder and chief executive of Weel, the Sydney company that issues corporate cards and automates expenses and payables for Australian and New Zealand businesses. He started it in 2017 as DiviPay with his co-founder Russell Martin.
Two Innovators at Westpac
Kniaz and Russell Martin first met in 2016 in the innovation team at Westpac, working on thoughtful financial products for customers. They spotted a gap in the virtual card market, where people could split payments in real time and still pay through a single card. Martin is the company’s CTO and came from technology roles at Atlassian and IBM, while Kniaz came from the consulting side.
From DiviPay to Weel
They left to build the idea themselves and launched DiviPay to consumers in 2017. Soon businesses asked for the same product, so the founders ended the consumer product and focused on small businesses and not-for-profits. The company received $100,000 from H2 Ventures in 2016, a first instalment of $2.3 million led by 1835i, ANZ Bank’s venture arm, in 2019, and a A$20 million Series A in December 2021 from an undisclosed fintech growth equity investor, Global Founders Capital, and Rapyd Ventures.
In September 2022 DiviPay became Weel, a name the team felt reflected spend management beyond cards. At the time thousands of businesses were processing more than $250 million a year on the platform.
Spend Management for Australia and New Zealand
Weel now serves more than 4,000 finance teams and has won its category in the WeMoney Business Awards three years running. It competes with Volopay, Pleo, and Expensify. Kniaz says he has spent close to ten years building for finance teams, and the next chapter is about taking more of the work off them.
