Basis Raises $34 Million to Deploy AI Agents for Accountants

Basis has raised $34 million in a Series A round to expand its deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) agents designed to help accountants.

“We’ve raised $34m to accelerate our goal of equipping every accountant with a team of AI agents,” the company said in a Tuesday (Dec. 17) post on X.

The round was led by Khosla Ventures Managing Director Keith Rabois, alongside former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence Co-Founder Daniel Gross, Basis said in a Tuesday blog post.

Basis was founded to equip accountants with AI agents that can perform tasks, report back with results and free accountants up to focus on higher-level work, according to the company’s website.

In a deployment with select accounting firms in the U.S., the company’s AI agents have saved accountants as much as 30% of their total time, per the site.

“Accountants don’t need more software; every accountant already has dozens of software tools,” Basis said on its site. “Accountants need tools that can understand accounting, learn specific client needs, work independently and take real actions. Every accountant deserves a team that is an extension of them, that they can manage, and that can do work on their behalf.”

The company’s latest funding round came about 14 months after its $3.6 million seed round, which was announced in October 2023.

In September, Basis partnered with New Jersey-based CPA firm Wiss, which said it would deploy Basis’ AI platform across the firm.

Wiss began this full deployment of Basis after seeing successful results in 10 months of testing the platform in beta in its Client Accounting Services (CAS) practice. During that time, Wiss’ internal adoption of Basis increased rapidly each month.

“Our initial tests showed enormous potential for Basis to reduce the amount of manual work within the practice while providing an even higher quality experience for clients,” Wiss Partner Mike Castle said in a September press release. “The leadership team was eager to roll this out to all clients as quickly as possible, recognizing this as a key enabler of scaling our CAS service line for future growth.”

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz said in June that accounting firms are especially eager to harness the potential AI to enhance efficiency and manage increasing workloads.