Finance concierge start-up Zeni raises $34 mn to help firms manage finances

AI-powered finance concierge Zeni said it has raised $34 million in a Series B funding round led by Elevation Capital with participation from new investors Think Investments and Neeraj Arora. Zeni has seen 550 per cent revenue growth year-over-year driven exclusively by referrals and organic growth. Existing investors Saama Capital, Amit Singhal, Sierra Ventures, Twin Ventures, Dragon Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures also participated in the round.

Today, Zeni manages more than $500 million in funds each month across more than 100 startup customers, ranging from pre-revenue startups to businesses generating more than $100 million in annual revenue. Zeni will use the capital infusion to bring its intelligent bookkeeping and accounting platform and services to more customers. It would invest aggressively in its team in the US and India across product, technology, marketing, sales and finance operations.

Zeni was founded in 2019 by twin brothers and serial entrepreneurs, Swapnil Shinde and Snehal Shinde, who also founded Mezi, the AI-powered travel assistant acquired by American Express in 2018. The Zeni team is spread across Palo Alto, New York and Pune.

“Startups and small businesses are fundamentally changing how they operate based on digital-first tools and services that are displacing the traditional, slow and human-intensive services across every category,” said Swapnil Shinde, co-founder and CEO, Zeni. “There is a huge demand from startups to digitize and automate their business finances, leading Zeni to experience 550 per cent revenue growth and 375 per cent customer growth year-over-year.”

He said Zeni is tackling the root of startup risk—financial management—by applying artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotic process automation. This creates a fast, streamlined, intuitive way for startups to manage their finances.

The firm said it is the only bookkeeping and accounting platform that provides real-time insights and flux analysis of a company’s key financial metrics via its platform. This includes Zeni dashboard, including cash in and cash out analysis, universal search of transactions across a startup’s entire finance stack and spend and income trends for every customer and vendor in their ecosystem.

“Our focus at Zeni is to make finance management as seamless as possible for our customers, which carries over to the minimalist, intuitive product experience within the Zeni Dashboard,” said Snehal Shinde, co-founder and chief product officer, Zeni. “Every feature we introduce has an explicit purpose based on our customers’ needs and is meticulously crafted to allow startup founders to find the answers to their questions in the most direct, actionable way possible.”

Digital transformation is fueling the growth of businesses like Zeni as the startup and small business sector is feverishly digitizing and automating every part of their business operations.

“Digitizing and automating the bookkeeping and accounting functions and giving founders an up-to-the-minute understanding of their finances is critical for informed decision making in a fast-paced start-up environment,” said Ravi Adusumalli, founder and managing partner at Elevation Capital. “Zeni is making these tasks infinitely easier for founders.”