AI has introduced consideration to every kind of futuristic applied sciences, from humanoid robots to autonomous warships. However there’s a quieter growth taking place 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 yr, to call a couple 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 completely instructed TechCrunch. Different buyers embrace 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time as a software program engineer at purchase now, pay later firm Affirm, the place she noticed firsthand how outdated accounting software program was.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 as soon as 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 instructed TechCrunch.
So Quanta’s platform hoovers up information from an organization’s current fintech instruments like Brex, Mercury, or Stripe to robotically 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 robust at its peak) with AI. However Hastings says Quanta will keep away from this conundrum by constructing an AI-first product earlier than hiring a number of bookkeepers. So naturally, it additionally solely initially accepted clients for which its automated system may carry out the entire 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, according to PitchBook data. Hastings says {that a} school teacher as soon as instructed her that he didn’t image her changing 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 “anticipate extra” from their accounting instruments “past what incumbents have been capable of deal with.”
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