Closing the books at the quarter end, managing invoices and categorizing expenses involve a wide array of complex tasks that are both laborious and prone to human error. Botkeeper is automating bookkeeping workflows through their human-assisted AI platform, and today announced an $18M series A round, one of the largest A rounds for a Boston tech company.
The round was notable not only for its size but also for the names of some paramount participants: Greycroft and Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund. Existing investors, including Ignition Partners and Halfcourt Ventures, also participated for the second time in the highly sought after round. Other notable participants in the round include Sorenson Capital, Julian Brodsky, CPA Founder and CFO of Comcast and later Comcast Ventures, Stephen Messer, AI founder of Linkshare and Collective[i], Mike Volpe, former CMO of Hubspot and current CEO at Lola, Boston VC Jeff Fagnan, partner at Accomplice, and professional basketball player Matthew Dellavedova. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $22.5M.
In step with the exciting growth, Botkeeper adds Chris Mahl as Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Vice President. Chris joins botkeeper with an impressive track record of heading sales and strategy for companies resulting in the following: Two public exits, (Informatica and Salesforce), two M&A exit (RightMedia, LevelUp), as well as several other companies he had taken to 10X in growth (Oracle and JW Player). “The industry-leading combination of human, artificial intelligence and scale botkeeper delivers is reinventing the accounting experience. Botkeeper system drives the reactive and inaccurate to proactive, precise and predictive… at any scale,” Mahl said.
Botkeeper has its roots in Founder Enrico Palmerino’s experiences running an accounting business, where he saw firsthand the pain points business owners face in managing the books. “At Botkeeper we’re focused on bringing simplicity and dependability to the bookkeeping process, so business owners can focus on running their business,” says Enrico.
Botkeeper’s AI-driven platform helps automate common bookkeeping workflows, provides answers to client questions, and can request more info when necessary much the same way a regular bookkeeper would. The platform easily integrates with a client’s banks, credit cards, HR system, and POS system, and makes appropriate entries and adjustments to their Quickbooks or Xero accounts. “Botkeeper’s system provides businesses with a 24/7 AI-driven botkeeper, coupled with human bookkeepers who can jump in and help when necessary,” Enrico said.
“Botkeeper has built a solution capable of supporting companies of all shapes and sizes- startups through Fortune 5000 companies. After hearing raving reviews from clients at both ends of the spectrum, it was obvious that botkeeper had pulled it off,” said Mark Terbeek, Partner at Greycroft. “We quickly decided that we needed Botkeeper ourselves, and needless to say, we saw the value overnight. Every company needs great bookkeeping, but all too often we see companies who still struggle to get it done right. We are thrilled to partner with a world-class company like botkeeeper that can get it right- every time.”
“Machine learning is transforming key workflows across accounting, and Botkeeper represents the future of AI-assisted bookkeeping. We’re excited to work with Botkeeper in helping make this process easier, efficient, and more accurate for accounting professionals,” said Gradient Ventures Partner Muzzammil “MZ” Zaveri. “In the coming years, we expect AI to play an increasingly larger role in automating accounting and compliance functions.”
The Boston-based company currently supports nearly 1000 companies, and plans to use the funds to grow across engineering, sales, and marketing.
About Botkeeper
Botkeeper is developing AI to help automate bookkeeping and broader accounting functions for businesses. The platform easily integrates with a client’s banks, credit cards, HR system, and POS system, and makes appropriate entries and adjustments to their Quickbooks or Xero accounts, providing businesses with a 24/7 AI-driven botkeeper. The new-age software platform coupled with skilled accountants helps to automate common bookkeeping workflows for accounting professionals through the use of machine learning and AI. The company is headquartered in Boston, MA. For more information, visit botkeeper.com.
About Greycroft
Greycroft is a leading venture capital firm focused on investments in the Internet and mobile markets. With offices in the two media capitals of the world – New York and Los Angeles – Greycroft is uniquely positioned to serve entrepreneurs who have chosen us as their partners. Greycroft leverages an extensive network of media and technology industry connections to help entrepreneurs gain visibility, build strategic relationships, bring their products to market, and build successful businesses. Greycroft manages in excess of $1 billion and has made over 150 investments since inception in leading companies including Acorns, App Annie, Boxed, Braintree, Buddy Media, Everything But The House, Extreme Reach, Huffington Post, Icertis, JW Player, Maker Studios, Plated, Scopely, Shipt, TheRealReal, Thrive Market, Trunk Club, Venmo, WideOrbit, and Yeahka. For more information please visit http://www.greycroft.com.
About Gradient Ventures
Gradient Ventures is Google’s AI-focused venture fund – investing in and connecting early-stage startups with Google’s resources, innovation, and technical leadership in artificial intelligence. The fund focuses on helping founders navigate the challenges in developing AI-based products, from leveraging training datasets to helping companies take advantage of the latest techniques, so that great ideas can come to life. Gradient was founded in 2017 and is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit Gradient.com.
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