By Anna Tong
(Reuters) – Artificial intelligence startup Basis has raised $34 million in a Series A funding round for its AI-powered accounting automation product, the company said on Tuesday.
The round was led by Khosla Ventures. Other investors included NFDG, the AI-focused fund of former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and former Apple executive Daniel Gross, OpenAI board members Larry Summers and Adam D’Angelo, and Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean.
New York-based Basis is part of a category of AI startups that create autonomous agents, or systems that use AI to perform actions on their own. Executives in the field, such as Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI, have said that such systems will dominate the AI agenda next year, as models have recently reached the point where they can do long-term planning.
Basis’ product, which they sell specifically to accounting firms, can perform various workflows, such as entering transactions and double-checking data accuracy, and integrates with popular general ledger systems such as Intuit’s QuickBooks and Xero, the company said.
Large accounting firms such as Wiss, which employ 450 accountants, have seen time savings of up to 30% by using Basis, the company’s CEO Matt Harpe told Reuters.
The product, which functions like a junior accountant, allows staff accountants to spend their time reviewing the AI agent’s work, rather than doing the work manually, Harpe said.
Basis is helping to solve the current critical shortage of accountants, Keith Rabois, managing director of Khosla Ventures, told Reuters, as baby boomers retire and younger generations withdraw from the profession.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry employs more than 3 million people in the US. But according to the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the number of candidates taking the annual CPA exam dropped 33% from 2016 to 2021.
Global accounting firms have historically addressed the shortage by setting up shop in outsourcing hubs like India.
Accounting is also among the industries most vulnerable to AI disruption. A 2023 OpenAI paper concluded that automation driven by large language models could impact 100% of accountants’ and auditors’ tasks.
(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
