Botkeeper, a leading US-based AI-powered Bookkeeping company, today announced that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $47.5 million. The round was led by Point72 Ventures, the global venture capital firm backed by prominent investor Steve Cohen. Additional investors include High Alpha Capital, Republic Labs, Oakridge Management Group, Peak State as well as existing investors Ignition Partners, Greycroft Partners, Gradient Ventures, Sorenson Capital. The contributing teams bring a powerful blend of specialties to the table such as product and strategy expertise, AI and financial services proficiency, SaaS Startup growth mastery, and command on Accounting industry knowledge.
This announcement comes as the need to augment the traditional back-office bookkeeping operations continues to rise to meet the growing demand for better automation and virtual choices. The increasing need for automation that enables higher efficiency, better capacity, sustainable economies of scale being driven by the COVID-19 has resulted in increasing demands being put on Accounting Professionals, who have been continuing to operate as essential business providers. At a time when a majority of businesses are under intense pressure to stay alive, it becomes absolutely imperative to ensure the business's financials are accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible for decision making. Accounting Professionals are facing unprecedented pressure to deliver service and guidance quickly, reliably, and efficiently while keeping their employees safe- and automation is the key to meeting those challenges.
At the time of this announcement, Enrico Palmerino, CEO, and Co-founder, Botkeeper said, "I am absolutely thrilled to be partnering with such an impressive investor base. Their track records and expertise in fintech and artificial intelligence will be beneficial to our product development and growth strategy. The additional funding will allow us to further our mission of building The Future of Bookkeeping and double down on engineering and product development for our accounting partners."
"We could not be more excited for the great partnership with our new and existing investor teams," said Chris Mahl, President, and CRO at Botkeeper. "The team at Botkeeper along with our industry-innovating Partner Firms are fast at work transforming the space around pre-accounting. Our single focus is to continue to drive value and difference to our member firms, allowing them to experience unprecedented growth in all key areas the Botkeeper solution touches. We know this is just the beginning."
Repetitive and predictable tasks like transaction categorization and reconciliations have successfully been automated by Botkeeper, while the complex and unpredictable tasks that require critical thinking, are handled by their team of skilled accountants and bookkeepers. Traditional automation can't handle the constant change and infinite variability of these tasks. Automating them requires advanced AI that can understand, learn, and adapt. That's the exact reason why the highly competitive round managed to attract a half dozen term sheets and a dozen-plus eager participants, resulting in a signed term sheet within 35 days, and successful close in 59 days- the entire process having been conducted completely virtually.
This new infusion of capital will enable Botkeeper to continue accelerating its mission in the Accounting industry, with a focus on Accounting Partnerships, introducing its sophisticated AI-powered bookkeeping to new firms around the country, and growing its development, engineering, sales, and client success teams. Research and development, partner growth enablement, and user experience are the core focuses for 2021.
"Botkeeper has seen incredible growth as they bring AI and automation to bookkeeping and back-office operations," said Scott Dorsey, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at High Alpha. "I am excited to work with Enrico and his talented team as they continue to scale and create the future of bookkeeping."
Founded in 2015, Botkeeper's vision (and slogan) was to build and deliver the Future of Bookkeeping. Having developed an AI-powered platform, Botkeeper's technology connects and digest financial and non-financial data, processes it through its machine learning models, reviews and ensures accuracy with a skilled team of accountants, and delivers accurate financial data and closed books to accounting firms and businesses in either QuickBooks or Xero. Accounting firms love Botkeeper because it allows them to focus their time on client service, advisory, complicated accounting, and exception handling. As the back office operations become more important than ever, Botkeeper will double down on product innovation to continue assisting its current and new accounting partners.
"This funding round is a testament to the Botkeeper team and solution radically transforming the accounting industry," said Kellan Carter, Partner at Ignition, and one of the existing original investors at Botkeeper. "It's been a privilege seeing the team's vision for the future of bookkeeping come to fruition since the original investment in late 2017."
The funding comes on the heels of significant momentum for the company. Soon after their Series A round in November 2018, Botkeeper invested heavily in developing partnerships with Accounting firms to accelerate the deployment of automated bookkeeping to businesses throughout the US. By April 2020, Botkeeper had successfully brought on 10 top 400 Accounting Firms partners, and are on track to be supporting thousands of businesses on the Botkeeper Platform by the end of 2020.
ABOUT BOTKEEPER
Botkeeper provides automated bookkeeping support to Accounting firms and businesses by using a powerful combination of skilled accountants, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Clients receive 24/7 accounting and support as well as incredible insight into their financials with interactive dashboards and unlimited reporting. Botkeeper's Accounting Partners are able to grow their book of business and provide high-quality services to their clients, increasing their ability to take on new clients, all while getting crystal clean financials at tax time- all while reducing overhead. Botkeeper is the only solution of its kind, acting as a force multiplier for business owners and Accounting firms. The company is headquartered in Boston, MA with offices in North Carolina, New York, and Balanga (PH)
