AI has introduced consideration to all types of futuristic applied sciences, from humanoid robots to autonomous warships. However there’s a quieter increase occurring in a extremely conventional business: accounting. VCs are excited by the prospect of automating expensive human labor with AI, funding firms like Numeric and Kick final 12 months, to call a number of.
The newest startup to trip this wave is Quanta, which sells an AI-powered accounting platform to software program firms and has raised a $4.7 million seed spherical led by Accel, it solely informed TechCrunch. Different buyers embody basecase, Comma Capital, and San Francisco angel investor Elad Gil.
Quanta traces its origins to founder Helen Hastings’ time as a software program engineer at buy-now, pay-later firm Affirm, the place she noticed firsthand how outdated accounting software program was. Getting good monetary information was extremely guide and resulted in studies that solely got here out once-a-month.
“I knew I wished to construct one thing from scratch that might assist monetary groups and enterprise leaders be extra environment friendly,” Hastings informed TechCrunch.
So Quanta’s platform hovers up information from an organization’s present fintech instruments like Brex, Mercury, or Stripe to mechanically produce books and real-time studies.
That’s a imaginative and prescient that has tripped up different startups like Bench, which tried – and failed – to automate a few of its costly human bookkeepers (600-strong at its peak) with AI. However Hastings says Quanta will keep away from this conundrum by constructing an AI-first product earlier than hiring numerous bookkeepers. So naturally, it additionally solely initially accepted prospects for which its automated system might carry out all the accounting.
The fundraise can also be a private milestone for Hastings as a feminine founder in an area that’s dominated by males. The share of funding that goes to female-only based firms like Quanta stood at solely 2% in 2024, based on Pitchbook information. Hastings says {that a} school teacher as soon as informed her that he didn’t image her turning into a founder. However moments like that one solely invigorate her extra.
With this fundraise, Hastings says Quanta plans to maneuver past its present area of interest of early-stage software program firms to bigger companies, together with ones with a number of company entities. Hastings says she’s excited for bigger organizations to “count on extra” from their accounting instruments “past what incumbents have been capable of deal with.”
