In the realm of corporate financial management, a revolution driven by artificial intelligence is quietly unfolding. Financial software company Numeric recently completed a $28 million Series A funding round, not only reflecting investors' confidence in AI applications in the financial sector but also foreshadowing significant changes to traditional accounting practices.
For a long time, month-end and quarter-end closing processes have been a nightmare for accountants. This typically manual operation is prone to errors and is both time-consuming and labor-intensive. Dissatisfied with this tedious work, Parker Gilbert co-founded Numeric in 2020. This accounting software simplifies parts of the bookkeeping process through automation, and the introduction of generative AI technology in recent years has significantly enhanced Numeric's capabilities, making it the preferred tool for accounting departments at renowned companies like Brex, OpenAI, Plaid, and Wealthfront.
Numeric's success is not only reflected in its client list but also in its remarkable growth. Over the past year, the company's revenue has quadrupled, reaching millions of dollars. This growth trajectory has attracted the attention of many investors. Following a $10 million seed round funding five months ago, Numeric quickly completed a $28 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures, with new investors IVP and Socii also participating.
Numeric's core advantage lies in its ability to significantly shorten the time required for monthly bookkeeping. Gilbert explained to TechCrunch that Numeric integrates and reconciles data from various accounting systems and Excel spreadsheets, then uses AI agents to analyze changes in each item compared to the previous month. If anomalies or unexpected fluctuations are detected, the AI automatically explains the reasons for account increases or decreases, saving a lot of human time.
For example, if the AI finds that Numeric's legal fees are much higher in October than in September, it will provide an explanation: "The increase in legal fees this month is due to the additional $X paid to Wilson Sonsini for financing costs." To ensure accuracy, Numeric always provides links that allow accountants to verify the AI's work at any time.
Although the actual verification and calculation are not yet fully completed by generative AI, Gilbert expects Numeric's models to accurately perform these tasks soon. He emphasizes that large language models have already performed well in synthesizing large amounts of data and will continue to improve.
Croom Beatty, a partner at Menlo Ventures, said that Numeric is one of the most exciting companies he has long been watching in the field of accounting software innovation. He believes Numeric's strength lies in combining complex workflows with complex data processing to serve a market that has long been overlooked by tech companies. Beatty anticipates that Numeric may also expand into areas such as financial planning and analysis, a market currently dominated by Anaplan.
In terms of competitive landscape, Numeric's main rivals are the publicly traded company BlackLine and the startup FloQast, valued at $1.6 billion. However, Beatty points out that the work Numeric does is extremely complex and difficult to replicate, which explains why there are no other new AI-driven accounting software competitors in the market.
As AI technology deepens its application in financial management, we can foresee that traditional accounting methods will undergo a significant transformation. Numeric's success is not just the rise of a company but represents the trend of the entire industry towards intelligence and automation. In this process, the role of accountants will also shift from tedious data processors to strategic financial advisors, providing more valuable insights for corporate decision-making.