PE Partnerships Lead

About Payflows

Payflows is the agentic finance platform built for modern enterprises. Backed by Balderton Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Headline (€25M Series A), we help finance teams automate accounts payable, procurement, and payments — replacing manual processes with AI-driven workflows that deliver 90%+ touchless invoice rates and dramatic cost savings. Our customers are fast-growing mid-market and enterprise companies across Europe, and private equity-backed businesses are increasingly a cornerstone of our ICP.

The Role
This is a founding role. You'll build Payflows' PE partnerships function from scratch — identifying the right funds, building relationships with value creation and portfolio operations teams, and turning those relationships into a repeatable pipeline of portfolio company introductions.

You'll sit at the intersection of partnerships, sales, and strategy. This is a high-autonomy, high-impact position that reports directly to the Head of GTM and works closely with the CEO and founding team. If you've spent years in the PE world and want to be on the other side of the table, or you've been doing partnerships in tech and know PE inside out, this is the role for you.

What You'll Do:

• Build the function from zero — define the partnership model, tier funds by fit, and develop the playbook for how Payflows engages with PE at every stage (fund, portfolio ops, portco CFO)

• Own the relationship map — identify and cultivate relationships with value creation teams, operating partners, and portfolio finance leads across target funds

• Drive qualified pipeline — convert fund relationships into warm introductions to portco CFOs and Finance Directors; track and report on partnership-sourced revenue

• Develop partnership collateral — work with GTM and marketing to build fund-specific one-pagers, ROI tools, and co-branded materials that resonate with portfolio ops teams

• Run the outreach motion — own outbound sequencing to new funds, attend LP/GP events, and represent Payflows at industry forums

• Collaborate on deal execution — stay involved through the sales cycle on partnership-sourced deals; bring context on portco dynamics, fund priorities, and internal stakeholders

• Feed intelligence back into the business — surface themes from PE conversations that inform product roadmap, packaging, and ICP strategy

Why Join:

Greenfield ownership — you're not inheriting someone else's playbook, you're writing it

Direct access to leadership — small team, fast decisions, high visibility

Strong backer network — Balderton, Ribbit, and Headline open doors; you'll have investor relationships to leverage from day one

Meaningful equity — early-stage, competitive package

Category tailwind — agentic AI in finance is one of the most active investment themes in enterprise software r

Must-haves

• 3+ years in a PE partnerships, business development, or value creation role — either at a PE fund (operating partner, value creation, portfolio ops) or in a tech/SaaS company selling into or through PE

• A genuine network across EMEA PE — particularly UK and European mid-market funds — you should be able to pick up the phone to value creation leads on day one

• Strong commercial instincts — you understand how PE funds evaluate vendor relationships, how portcos make buying decisions, and what "value creation" actually means to an operating partner

• Excellent communication — you can speak fluently to a CFO, an operating partner, and a founder in the same day

• Self-starter mentality — you're comfortable with ambiguity and energised by building something new

Nice-to-haves

• Background in finance, fintech, or finance transformation (AP automation, P2P, ERP)

• Experience working at a high-growth Series A/B SaaS company

• French and English fluency (other European languages a plus)