Successful startups often spawn a “startup mafia” – a group of former founders who start other startups. But just as often, new startups are founded by employees. That’s exactly what happened with LiveFlow, which has now raised $13.5 million.
A few years ago, Anita Keumer was heading up the rewards product at fintech unicorn Revolut, and Lasse Kalkar was the company’s country manager for the Nordic region.
Since meeting, the two stayed in touch and later came up with the idea for LiveFlow as co-founders, taking it through the Y Combinator accelerator and raising a seed round in 2021.
LiveFlow allows businesses to sync real-time data from accounting services, banks, and payment platforms into custom reports, automating workflows, consolidating company accounts, and encouraging collaboration across the company. It may seem simple, but even in this day and age, accountants still need to transfer data between systems, and often do it manually.
But as enterprise platforms slowly encroach on accountants’ workflows, many are choosing to leave the industry, and the evidence continues to grow, especially now that AI is beginning to take over human jobs.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors will leave the profession between 2019 and 2021, and the number of U.S. accountants has declined 15.9% since 2019. Meanwhile, junior accountants ages 25 to 34 and mid-career professionals ages 45 to 54 are leaving the industry.
LiveFlow wants to stop that trend, not speed it up: CEO Kalkar told TechCrunch: “Our plan is to use AI to make accounting firms more efficient, but we believe accountants will still be around.”
Why is that?
“Fundamentally, small businesses hire accountants for peace of mind. They want to know that someone has their back, and technology can’t fully replace that,” Kalkar says.
However, Kalkar declined to say what type of AO the company actually plans to use: “It’s still in the roadmap stage and will be rolled out over the next year or so. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal what AI we’re using at this point.”
Whatever they’re doing, it seems to be working.
The startup raised $13.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures, the firm co-founded by Peter Thiel and the first venture fund to invest in Xero and later TransferWise.
Former Web Summit engineering leader Evan O’Brien has also joined the team, and Koimur and Kalkar are now based in New York with plans to expand the business in the US.
The company’s current clients include accounting firms such as BDO and KLR, as well as brands such as Wendy’s and Crumble Cookies.
Its latest product, LiveFlow Next, is designed to help accounting departments take on more advisory work.
“LiveFlow helps us save countless hours each month while eliminating human error,” Valar founding partner James Fitzgerald said in a statement.
LiveFlow has competitors, but none appear to be venture-backed as of yet: Australia’s Fathom is doing something similar but doesn’t appear to have raised any VC money, while US-based Reach Reporting is in a similar situation, according to Cruchbase.
