Personio Buys Circula to Own the DATEV Channel

Munich HR software group Personio acquires Circula, a Berlin spend platform used by more than 3,000 European firms, in a deal announced on October 6, 2026. No purchase price was given. Circula’s 250,000 users and Personio’s more than 16,000 customers already overlap in hundreds of joint accounts, and the Berlin product now trades as Circula by Personio.

Hanno Renner, Personio’s chief executive and co-founder, said spend management is one of the capabilities customers ask for most, and that the rules change at every European border, just as they do for payroll. The harder asset in the deal is the DATEV pipe and the tax-adviser network both companies have spent years courting.

The Tax Advisers Who Gate Every Expense File

Personio, founded in Munich in 2015, says it serves companies that employ 1.6 million people and has more than 1,500 staff across six European offices, selling HR tools to organisations with 25 to 5,000 employees. Circula, founded in Berlin in 2017, sells expenses, travel costs, corporate cards, accounts payable and tax-optimised benefits. Renner said that over the past 9 years Circula had already solved that cross-border mess in an intuitive and powerful way, and that the combined group now unites HR, payroll and spend management, which he called a first in Europe.

Nikolai Skatchkov, Circula’s chief executive and co-founder, pointed at a narrower joint. Employee records already sync. The tax logic on expenses and the tax logic on payroll were still written by two vendors.

The unsolved part is that the tax logic on the expense side and on the payroll side has always been built by two different companies. Joining forces with Personio today changes that. For our customers, DATEV stays, the existing integration stays, and expertise that Circula built stays. What changes is that HR, spend, and now payroll are designed to be one.

Nikolai Skatchkov, CEO and co-founder of Circula, Personio announcement

Both firms also built communities of hundreds of tax advisers and tools that let those advisers work with clients inside the software. In Germany that channel is not a side market. A Steuerberater still signs off payroll and booking files for a large share of the Mittelstand, and software that cannot land cleanly in that office does not get bought.

THE TWO COMPANIES AT THE CLOSE

The table is the product pitch. The tax office is the buyer who can still say no.

DATEV Picked Circula as Its Travel-Expense Partner

DATEV eG is the Nuremberg cooperative that runs payroll and accounting software for German tax advisers. Circula’s own DATEV page calls the company the official successor to DATEV Reisekosten classic, and says DATEV uses the app for its own travel expenses. After a comparison of vendors, DATEV eG named Circula a recommended partner for travel costs and employee expenses in 2020, and Circula still markets itself as the only DATEV-recommended travel expense tool since that year.

WHAT CIRCULA ALREADY FEEDS DATEV

• Marketplace listing: Circula sits on the DATEV marketplace as a premium partner, with an average 4.8 stars from over 600 reviews.
• Live booking file: Expense data moves to the tax consultancy in real time, with booking proposals built inside Circula before the file leaves.
• Audit trail: Circula sells a paperless, GoBD-compliant path from capture to archive, which is the bar German books have to clear.
• Payroll hook: Out-of-policy travel costs and extra meal amounts can already be pushed from Circula into DATEV payroll products such as LODAS and Lohn und Gehalt.

Personio already sends salary data into DATEV LODAS and DATEV Lohn und Gehalt, including master data, salaries, one-off payments and absences, and can pull payslips back. Expenses from Circula can already reach payroll through DATEV or through Personio’s own payroll engine. The announcement says those DATEV links will keep being built, and will over time sit inside a single solution. Until that code is actually one, advisers still live with two tax brains that happen to share an owner.

A 2022 Shareholding Became an October Buyout

The close on October 6, 2026 did not start from a cold call. The two products have shared customers for several years, and Personio took a stake in Circula in 2022, the same year the Berlin firm raised fresh venture money. Lincoln International advised Circula on its sale and called the pairing complementary. The Circula team joins Personio. Dr. Ashkan Kalantary, a managing director in Lincoln’s software group, said Personio’s hold in HR and payroll and Circula’s hold in spend make a clean fit.

FROM PARTNERSHIP TO PURCHASE

1. 2015: Personio is founded in Munich as an HR platform for small and mid-sized European firms.
2. 2017: Nikolai Skatchkov and Roman Leicht found Circula in Berlin around digital expenses and employee benefits.
3. 2020: DATEV eG names Circula a recommended partner for travel costs and employee expenses.
4. January 31, 2022: Circula raises €12 million in Series A money from Alstin Capital, Peak and Storm Ventures, with Capnamic, Main Incubator and WENVEST returning; Personio takes a stake in Circula the same year.
5. May 7, 2025: Circula raises €15 million, led with CIBC Innovation Banking, and then counted over 2,800 customers and over 150,000 users.
6. April 22, 2026: Personio reports a first profitable quarter and buys Munich recruiting-AI startup aurio.
7. October 6, 2026: Personio buys Circula. The product becomes Circula by Personio and the team moves across.

By the time of the sale, Circula had grown from those over 2,800 firms in May 2025 to more than 3,000, and from over 150,000 users to 250,000. Personio’s last published valuation was $8.5 billion in June 2022, after a $200 million second close on its Series E. The Circula cheque was never put on the record.

What Happens If You Use Circula Without Personio?

Joint customers are promised a deeper hook between HR records and spend, so cost centres, approvers and IBANs stop being typed twice. Circula customers who never bought Personio keep the product, which Personio says will still be built as a standalone. That split matters because most of Personio’s 16,000 firms are not on its native payroll yet, and a finance team that already runs DATEV through a tax adviser may not want an HR suite wrapped around receipts.

WHAT STAYS FOR CIRCULA CUSTOMERS

• The brand: The app is Circula by Personio from October 6, 2026, not a quiet retirement of the name.
• The DATEV file: Skatchkov said the DATEV integration stays, and so does the expense and benefits know-how Circula already shipped.
• The standalone path: Firms that do not run Personio can keep Circula and are told it will be developed further.
• The people: The Circula team joins Personio rather than being parked as a distant affiliate.

Smaller companies still often buy one expense app that works, then leave it alone, rather than sit through a platform rollout that also wants recruiting, absences and payroll. Personio is betting the opposite: that once salary, benefits, expenses and cards share a record, finance and HR will stop running two closes. Tax advisers who liked having a second vendor to argue with may feel that bet in the other direction.

Moss, Pleo and Spendesk Already Cover Cards and Receipts

Personio is walking into a crowded aisle. Pleo in Denmark, Spendesk in Paris and Moss in Berlin already sell corporate cards, invoices and reimbursements to the same midsize European buyers. Moss is the closest German peer, mixing cards, bills and expense claims for SMEs. None of those firms owns a 16,000-customer HR system with a native German payroll engine, which is the wedge Personio is now trying to drive.

Circula’s card is part of that fight. The Berlin product already bundled a company card with expenses and benefits, which is how it held deals against card-first rivals. Personio’s announcement lists corporate cards beside salary and benefits as spend it now wants to run in one place. Rivals that live only in the finance stack will have to explain why a receipt should not be born inside the same system that already holds the employment contract.

The counter is simple, and it is already how a lot of German firms buy software. A tax adviser who trusts Circula’s DATEV file may not want that file swallowed by the HR vendor. A finance lead who picked Pleo or Moss for cards may not reopen the tender because Munich bought Berlin.

80% Payroll Growth Bought Room for a Spend App

This is Personio’s second buy of 2026. On April 22 it posted a first profitable quarter in April and acquired aurio, a Munich recruiting-AI startup whose team joined product, engineering and design. Renner said profitability meant Personio could fund its roadmap from the business, without waiting on outside capital cycles. At that point Personio said payroll was growing 80% year over year and already served more than 1,500 customers, while its recruiting app was used by 9,000 customers.

Native payroll was the last big adjacent bet. Spend is the next one, and it attaches at the same joint: a euro that leaves the company as salary, a benefit, a card swipe or an expense claim. Personio said in the Circula announcement that the pairing is a natural step after that payroll build, and that HR should see fewer systems while finance should see cleaner books and a faster close.

One named customer has been running both products for years. Veronika von Heise-Rotenburg, chief financial officer of Everphone, said the firms have sat side by side there for more than 6 years, with payroll, cost centres and approvers synced from day one.

We picked them deliberately: the strongest player in each category, connected through the existing integration. Payroll, cost centres and approvers were synced from day one, so two products never felt like two systems. The next step, both growing closer together, is the one we have been waiting for.

Veronika von Heise-Rotenburg, CFO of Everphone, Personio announcement

Everphone already had the integration. Most of the hundreds of joint customers are in the same place. The work that still has to ship is the single tax logic Skatchkov described, written once, landing in DATEV as one file. Until advisers see that file in production, Circula by Personio is a shared holding company with a familiar brand and a promise.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Does Circula Bill Expense Users?

Circula charges a fixed fee per active user per month after a trial. A user is billed as active if, in the last 30 days, they submitted an expense, approved or rejected one, controlled one, or created an expense report. Headcount sitting idle in the HR file does not, on that rule, turn into spend seats.

Which DATEV Payroll Products Does Personio Feed?

Personio’s DATEV integration is built for DATEV LODAS and DATEV Lohn und Gehalt. It is listed as moving employee master data, fixed salaries, hourly wages, one-off and recurring pay, and absences including sick leave into the DATEV data centre, then pulling payslips and eAU sick-note certificates back into Personio once payroll has run.

Who Founded Circula, and Where Is It Based?

Nikolai Skatchkov, who remains chief executive, founded Circula in Berlin in 2017 with Roman Leicht, the co-founder and chief technology officer. Company filings place the office at Schönhauser Allee 148 in Berlin. Skatchkov is the voice on the DATEV-stays pledge in the sale.

Is Circula’s Expense Software Certified for German Audits?

Circula says its travel-expense software is GoBD compliant and certified under IDW PS 880 by Eger, Färber & Kollegen Wirtschaftsprüfungs und Beratungs GmbH. It also calculates per diems under the BRKG federal travel-expense rules, which public-sector and BRKG-aligned employers ask for when a private-sector tool tries to replace DATEV Reisekosten classic.