Modern bookkeeping fintech Zeni today launched an AI-powered finance concierge for startups, making its intelligent bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services available to businesses across the United States.
The company also announced it has raised $13.5 million in funding to-date, its Series A led by Saama Capital with participation from Amit Singhal, Sierra Ventures, SVB Financial Group, Liquid 2 Ventures, Firebolt Ventures, Dragon Capital, and Twin Ventures, with additional prominent angel investors.
Zeni manages more than $200 million in funds every month across more than 100 startup customers. Using a blend of artificial intelligence and team of certified finance experts, Zeni’s full-service finance concierge performs daily bookkeeping and manages all other financial needs of its customers. The speed and accuracy of this approach gives startup founders real-time access to key financial insights via the Zeni Dashboard — including burn rate, operating expenses, cash/card balance, revenue by product, month-end reports, and more.
“Startup founders are flying blind daily because they don’t have access to a timely, accurate snapshot of their business finances,” said Swapnil Shinde, cofounder and CEO of Zeni. “We’re giving founders and startup decision makers real-time visibility, control, and expert support with a finance solution that can finally keep pace with their growing business.”
Zeni manages everything finance-related on behalf of its startup customers for a flat monthly fee as part of its bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services, which includes:
- Bill pay and invoicing
- Expense and receipt management
- Financial projections, budgeting, and FP&A Support
- Payroll administration
- Real-time reporting via Zeni Dashboard
- Monthly financial statements
- Yearly taxes and R&D credit
Zeni has processed more than $300 million in transactions in its first year, and is on-track to process a total of $1 billion in transactions in the next 12 months.
“Zeni is solving real-world pain points for startups like ours,” said Jenova Chen, cofounder and president of thatgamecompany. “We view the Zeni team as an extension of our own. We rely on them daily to answer questions and get us our financial reports in a timely manner. For the first time, the Zeni dashboard gives me a real-time snapshot of how our business is tracking and a constant outlook on business performance.”
Zeni cofounders Swapnil Shinde and Snehal Shinde are repeat entrepreneurs and technologists with a proven track record unifying human expertise with artificial intelligence, selling their last company, AI-powered travel concierge Mezi, to American Express in 2018. Leveraging their technical expertise and first-hand experiences as founders, the twin brothers recruited a team of expert CPAs, accountants, tax advisors, FP&A experts and CFOs to create the only finance management solution for founders, by founders.
“Bookkeeping automation is a $10 billion market opportunity begging for a solution that can optimize human output and meet the needs of growing businesses,” said Ash Lilani, managing partner at Saama Capital. “When Swapnil and Snehal said they wanted to challenge the fragmented, complex bookkeeping solutions on the market today, we knew they were the team to do it. We’re thrilled to support Zeni in helping startups optimize their business daily.”
