Basis Raises $3.6M in Seed Funding for AI Accounting Platform

  getbasis.ai

Basis, an AI platform provider for accounting firms, has successfully raised $3.6 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Better Tomorrow Ventures and saw participation from BoxGroup, Avid Ventures, several renowned accounting firms, and leaders from the accounting and machine learning communities.

Addressing the Accounting Gap with AI

Accounting, a critical component of our market economy, is currently facing a shortage of manpower. Over the past few years, 300,000 accountants have quit, with fewer students entering the field and more accounting firms turning down clients due to workload constraints. This shortage could potentially undermine the trust in business, non-profit, and government communities.

The increasing capabilities of large machine learning models to reason through tasks and solve complex problems could transform the work of accounting and finance professionals. Basis believes accountants will soon have a team of AI assistants working both alongside them and autonomously, completing core workflows from start to finish. This approach could alleviate the accountant shortage and allow accountants to focus on providing advice, judgment, and strategic input, while also improving the quality of service and range of offerings to their clients.

The Basis Platform: More Than Just Chatbots

The Basis platform aims to unlock the potential of these emergent capabilities by integrating with the core workflow of accounting firms, rather than being a bolted-on chatbot. The platform is already serving clients across CFO advisory, assurance, client accounting services, bookkeeping, and more.

Built around the principles of trust, transparency, and verification, the Basis platform is designed to handle clients’ sensitive data with attention to detail and care, much like a traditional accounting firm.

A Fast-Paced AI Revolution

With the new funding, Basis aims to broaden its partnerships and scale its team. The company believes that the AI revolution in accounting will happen much faster than previous technological shifts in the industry, and is prepared to lead the charge. The transition from paper ledgers to digital spreadsheets took almost 25 years, and it took 15 years for the majority of accounting systems to move from desktop to cloud-based software. But the AI-driven transformation is expected to be much more rapid.