InScope received $14.5 million to solve a financial reporting problem

Even without a background in accounting, anyone who has glanced at a 10-K or 10-Q can tell that preparing financial statements is a complex and tedious process.

While legacy platforms like Workiva and Donnelley Financial Solutions aimed to simplify financial reporting, longtime accountants Mary Anthony (pictured right) and Kelsey Gutnick (pictured center) found themselves overwhelmed by various manual hurdles within these tools.

The pair met seven years ago at Flexport, where Gootnick worked as the company’s controller and Anthony worked as an assistant controller. They kept in touch even after Anthony moved to Miro and Gootnick to Hopin and later to Thrive Global.

No matter where they worked, Anthony and Gutnick continued to face the same manual challenges.

“The way financial data is put together, it’s put together in a lot of spreadsheets, transferred to a bunch of Word documents, and emailed back and forth between people,” Anthony told TechCrunch.

Therefore, in 2023, the pair decided to launch it Inscoopan AI-powered financial reporting platform that helps companies and accounting firms automate many aspects of the financial statement preparation process. The startup just raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Norwest, with participation from Storm Ventures, and existing backers Better Tomorrow Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Although InScope doesn’t fully automate the process of creating income statements and balance sheets yet, it does automate a lot of busy manual work, from checking calculations to formatting. Simply ensuring that dollar signs and commas are uniform and properly placed can save accountants up to 20% of their time, according to Anthony, CEO of InScope.

Over the past 12 months, InScope has grown its client base 5x, attracting top accounting firms like CohnReznick, currently ranked on our Top Accounting Firms list. Top 15 nationally.

Of course, it may take some time before accountants — a profession that Anthony describes as risk-averse — feel comfortable letting AI fully automate the preparation of financial statements. However, this remains InScope’s ultimate goal.

Norwest partner Sean Jacobsohn told TechCrunch that he invested in InScope after hearing from several customers that the startup’s product saved them a lot of time.

Jacobson is convinced that InScope stands out because so few founders have the specific expertise required to reinvent financial reporting technology.

“It’s a very complex space, and you have to be able to be in the buyer’s shoes before,” he said.

Anthony agrees that accountants are not usually the type to launch startups. Fortunately, she and Gutnick developed their entrepreneurial instincts through years of working within the fast-paced cultures of other high-growth startups.