Major AI players back Basis with $34 million

AI-specialized accounting platform company Basis has raised $34 million in Series A funding to bolster its autonomous AI agent product, with an investment round that was led by Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures, alongside Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, along with additional contributions from heavy hitters like Larry Summers, former US Secretary of Treasury, Jeff Dean, the chief scientist behind Google DeepMind, Noam Brown, the lead researcher for OpenAI's o1 model, and Jack Altman, former CEO of Lattice and the brother of OpenAI head Sam Altman, and many others. 

"We're putting every dollar back into the platform and team - to invest in ML research, to continue to bring the most cutting-edge AI to accounting firms, and to open additional slots for firms," said Matt Harpe, Basis co-founder, in an email. 

Basis, which emerged from stealth last year with $3.8 million in funding, uses generative AI and language models built specifically for extremely high accounting performance to perform various workflows such as entering transactions and double-checking data accuracy. This is in contrast to things like chatbots which can only read data and produce text. The product also integrates with popular ledger systems like Intuit's QuickBooks and Xero as well as AP systems such as Bill.com and file systems such as SharePoint or Box. It is already in use by firms such as Top 100 firm Wiss and Co., which partnered with Basis earlier this year. The product was compared to having a junior accountant, which Basis said allows human staff accountants to spend their time reviewing the AI agent's work, rather than doing the work manually. 

"This technology is a new paradigm for accounting. Learning to work with your computer, not just on it, might be an even bigger shift than going from paper to digital. Over the last year, as accountants have experienced what's possible with the most cutting-edge AI, we've seen more and more firms decide that AI must become the top strategic priority. We're excited to continue to equip firms with AI that actually works," said Mitch Troyanovsky, Basis co-founder in an email. 

Basis sells exclusively to accountants versus selling directly to businesses or building 'new' accounting firms, and is tailored specifically for use by expert accountants. Basis focuses on building agents that understand, and can operate on, accounting broadly instead of isolating only a specific task. This allows Basis to work across clients and workflows without losing context, and to quickly take on new workflows, said Basis. Accountants onboard Basis to engagements and assign it core workflows for one-time or ongoing execution

"Accounting is a massive industry, and Basis is clearly leading on the AI side. This is one of the few AI agents that's already deployed and working. Matt and Mitch have put together the best NYC team in the applied AI space," said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, who also co-founded Sun Microsystems.