InScope nabs $14.5M to solve the pain of financial reporting | TechCrunch
Summary
InScope, an AI-powered financial reporting startup founded by former accountants, raises $14.5 million to automate the tedious process of preparing financial statements, addressing significant inefficiencies in the industry.
Why It Matters
This funding round highlights the growing demand for automation in financial reporting, a traditionally manual and complex process. By leveraging AI, InScope aims to streamline operations for accounting firms, potentially transforming how financial statements are prepared and reducing time spent on mundane tasks.
Key Takeaways
- InScope raised $14.5 million in Series A funding to enhance financial reporting automation.
- The platform aims to reduce manual tasks in preparing financial statements, saving accountants significant time.
- Founders Mary Antony and Kelsey Gootnick leverage their accounting backgrounds to address industry pain points.
- InScope has seen a 5x growth in its customer base over the past year, attracting major accounting firms.
- The startup's ultimate goal is full automation of financial statement preparation, despite industry hesitance.
Even without a background in accounting, anyone who has ever glanced at a 10-K or 10-Q can tell that preparing financial statements is a complex, tedious process. While legacy platforms like Workiva and Donnelley Financial Solutions aim to streamline financial reporting, longtime accountants Mary Antony (pictured right) and Kelsey Gootnick (pictured center) found themselves exhausted by various manual hurdles within these tools. The duo met seven years ago at Flexport, where Gootnick served as the company’s controller and Antony served as assistant controller. They stayed in touch even after Antony moved to Miro and Gootnick to Hopin and later Thrive Global. No matter where they worked, Antony and Gootnick kept running into the same manual challenges. “The way financial statements come together, it’s just patched together in a lot of spreadsheets, moved into a bunch of Word documents, emailed back and forth between people,” Antony told TechCrunch. So, in 2023, the pair decided to launch InScope, an AI-powered financial reporting platform that helps companies and accounting firms automate many aspects of the financial statement preparation process. The startup just raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Norwest, with participation from Storm Ventures, and existing backers Better Tomorrow Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. While InScope isn’t fully automating the generation of income statements and balance sheets yet, it automates a vast amount of the manua...
