Maxima Raises $41 Million to Bring AI to Enterprise Accounting

Maxima AI has raised $41 million from Redpoint Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Audacious Ventures to automate corporate accounting operations, valuing the San Mateo, California startup at $143 million. The financing, which combined seed and Series A rounds, came with backing from former BlackLine Inc. executives Andres Botero and Eric Borrmann, plus finance chiefs from Rubrik Inc., Vanta Inc., and NFL player Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures. BlackLine, the publicly traded accounting software company where Botero and Borrmann previously worked, has a market capitalization of roughly $3 billion.

The deal reflects growing investor appetite for AI-powered accounting tools as financial close processes remain stubbornly manual. About 140 U.S. public companies restated their financials in the first 10 months of 2024 because of accounting errors, the most in nearly a decade, according to Audit Analytics. Despite decades of enterprise software development, accounting teams still spend the bulk of their time on repetitive reconciliation work, data entry and variance analysis during month-end close cycles.

Maxima targets this problem with AI agents that automate reconciliations, journal entries and close workflows. The platform operates as an intelligence layer above existing enterprise resource planning systems, pulling data from multiple sources, applying company policies, performing calculations and flagging anomalies. Companies can adopt the technology without replacing their ERPs, a critical consideration for enterprises reluctant to overhaul core financial infrastructure.

Yogi Goel founded the company with engineers Akshaya Srivatsa and Jack Liao, who previously worked at Twitter Inc. and Netflix Inc. Goel spent two decades in accounting and finance roles at EY, Citigroup Inc., Barcleys Plc and Rubrik, where he saw accounting challenges persist even in sophisticated finance organizations. He said in an interview that accountants spend too much time on manual work that leaves little capacity for judgment and analysis.

The startup has signed customers including Scale AI Inc., SpotOn and Rippling Inc., though it declined to disclose revenue figures or total customer count. Joshua Waldron, who oversees accounting at Scale AI, told Reuters that Maxima cut the time required for variance analysis to hours from days. Vipin Sethi, controller at Rippling, also said that the platform reduced manual burden for accountants managing general ledger operations across multiple bank accounts and entities. The company claims its technology delivers closes up to 80% faster with 95% automation of manual tasks while maintaining full audit trails for compliance.

The technical approach differs from established accounting software providers. BlackLine, FloQast Inc. and Trintech Group Ltd. offer workflow management and reconciliation tools that still rely heavily on human oversight. All three have added AI capabilities to existing products recently, but they were not built from the ground up around large language models. BlackLine reported revenue of $579.6 million for the 12 months ended September 30 whilst FloQast raised $110 million at a $1.2 billion valuation in 2021.

Maxima competes with newer AI-first startups like Numeric and Trullion, which are also building accounting automation tools around generative AI. The bet across these companies is that recent advances in large language models can finally automate tasks that resisted earlier automation attempts. Previous generations of accounting software digitized workflows and provided centralized data repositories, but still required substantial manual work to reconcile discrepancies, investigate anomalies and prepare entries.

Satish Dharmaraj, managing director at Redpoint Ventures, said accounting operations have grown too complex for human capacity and AI can now handle heavy lifting that was not possible before. Redpoint previously backed companies including Stripe Inc. and Snowflake Inc. Aditya Naganath, principal at Kleiner Perkins, said businesses generate more financial data across more systems, expanding the surface area for errors and delays. Kleiner backed UiPath Inc., the robotic process automation company that went public in 2021.

The accounting function presents particular challenges for AI automation. Unlike other business processes where AI systems provide recommendations that humans can review, accounting requires precise calculations, comprehensive documentation and regulatory compliance. Errors can trigger restatements, auditor scrutiny and regulatory violations. Companies need complete audit trails showing how every number was derived and who approved each entry. These requirements make the technical challenge harder but also create higher switching costs once customers adopt proven solutions.

Maxima says its AI agents document all work automatically and flag anomalies with explanations. When accountants log into the system, entries are already validated, documented and ready for approval rather than requiring preparation from scratch. The platform processes data according to company-specific policies and handles inputs from multiple sources including banks, payment processors, billing systems and inventory management software. Goel said the platform has processed millions of transactions for customers without errors, though this claim could not be independently confirmed.

The startup was named by Redpoint as one of the top companies shaping the AI application layer in its inaugural AI 64 list, alongside companies like Glean, Cursor, Abridge and Harvey. The recognition positions Maxima among a cohort of enterprise AI applications attracting significant capital as investors hunt for practical business uses of generative AI technology beyond chatbots and content generation.

The accounting automation market has historical precedents that shape investor thinking. BlackLine went public in 2016 and now serves thousands of enterprises, demonstrating that companies will pay substantial sums for software that reduces month-end close time and improves accuracy. However, adoption took years as finance teams moved cautiously given the risks of financial reporting errors. Newer startups must prove their AI systems can match or exceed the reliability of established tools while delivering meaningfully better results.

Research from MIT and Stanford University found accountants using AI handled 55% more clients per week than those who did not, while working 8.5 percentage points less on data entry and transaction coding tasks, saving around 3.5 hours weekly. The findings suggest AI can materially improve accounting productivity, though the studies examined narrow use cases rather than full close automation.

Maxima plans to use the new capital for product development and expanding its 31-person team. The company will focus on building integrations with major ERP systems including SAP SE, Oracle Corp. and Workday Inc., while adding capabilities for full close orchestration beyond specific workflow automation. Goel said the goal is establishing Maxima as the standard for agentic accounting automation as more companies adopt AI for financial operations.

The startup faces the challenge of moving from early adopters to mainstream enterprise customers who prioritize reliability over innovation. Large companies typically require extensive pilots, security reviews and change management before adopting new financial systems. The presence of former BlackLine executives as investors provides some operational credibility, but Maxima must demonstrate its AI works reliably at scale across different accounting scenarios. The $143 million valuation and $41 million in funding give the company runway to build that track record, though competition from both established vendors and well-funded startups will intensify as the market develops.