By Contributor,David Prosser

Copyright forbes

AI can help finance eradicate manual, paper-based processes

The promise of artificial intelligence (AI) is that it can automate many of the tasks to which businesses currently devote substantial resources – and do so in a way that turns what was previously tedious and manual work into a resource that delivers insight and value. And while many companies are still struggling to turn that promise into reality, accounting and finance, full of manual processing, is one obvious area of opportunity.

The rush to explore that potential is accelerating. One recent study suggested that the global AI in accounting market was worth $5.5 billion last year, and that it is set to grow at a rate of more than 25% a year over the next decade. No wonder: research published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business found accountants who use AI support more clients each week and finalise monthly statements seven-and-a-half days more quickly; they also spend 8.5% less time on routine back-office processing work.

One big question now is who will power this revolution. In one corner, the large established players in the accounting software sector, including Sage, Xero and Intuit, are all making huge investments in AI functionality. In the other, a growing number of start-ups are raising money for new solutions that approach the challenge with a clean sheet, rather than trying to bolt AI tools onto existing products and services.

One good example of the latter is Maximor, a New York-based start-up that is today announcing a $9 million funding round. “Finance teams are really struggling to manage the sprawl of systems in their organisation,” says Ramnandan Krishnamurthy, CEO and co-founder of the company. “They’ve also tended to be conservative about making major new technology investments.”

Maximor’s solution is a platform that integrates with companies’ existing software and systems – enterprise resource planning suites, payroll tools, payments systems and so on – to retrieve all the data that finance has often struggled to consolidate. “Once the platform has that single source of the truth, our AI agents can handle all the specialist accounting processes that finance is currently doing manually,” Krishnamurthy explains.

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The goal is to use AI to take the drudge work out of accounting, while also creating data and reports that are more accurate and timely. If it works, that should free up finance teams to spend more time on higher-value and more interesting work – including using the data generated to power smarter decision-making across the wider business. “Finance should be the growth engine of a company, not a cost centre,” Krishnamurthy argues.

Other start-ups in this market are a little further ahead. FloQast, for example, now has a global customer base, raised $100 million of financing last year, and is said to be eyeing an IPO. Other prominent companies in the space include Rillet, which raised $70 million in August, and firms such as Bluebook and Accordance, which are developing AI tools for accountants.

However, Maximor believes it can carve its own niche in the market, partly through a platform approach designed for simple integration with finance teams’ existing technologies, and partly through the finance agents it offers. The company also provides professional accounting support to companies using its platform through a team of in-house subject matter experts.

Today’s seed round provides Maximor with more bandwidth to develop new agents, as well as to accelerate a go-to-market strategy that has already begun to attract customers. The round is led by by Foundation Capital, with participation from Gaia Ventures, founded by a former SAP chief strategy officer, and Boldcap.

“Unlike solutions with disconnected AI tools, Maximor has built a unified platform where specialised AI agents work together seamlessly,” says Ashu Garg, general partner at Foundation Capital. “For mid-market and enterprise finance teams, it bridges the gap between their current systems and advanced AI, enabling meaningful transformation without disruption.”

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