In many organizations, finance remains a critical function, yet it often suffers from time-consuming manual processes. A survey by HR software provider Paylocity revealed that 38% of finance teams spend over 25% of their time on tasks such as reviewing invoices manually.
Matthieu Hafemeister, a former fintech investor at Andreessen Horowitz, observed this challenge while working with finance teams. He noted that these teams often rely on disjointed solutions and heavily depend on Excel, which limits automation potential. In fact, a separate survey found that 82% of finance departments still use Excel for core tasks like budgeting and forecasting.
After facing these issues firsthand at fintech firm Jeeves, Hafemeister partnered with Ted Michaels, Jeeves’ former head of finance, to create Concourse, a platform designed to automate financial tasks. Concourse connects with a company’s financial systems to retrieve and analyze data, generate charts, and answer queries like "What’s our non-GAAP revenue?"
According to Hafemeister, Concourse goes beyond improving efficiency; it can handle entire tasks independently, proactively surfacing insights and trends for finance teams.
Although automation in finance is not a new concept—platforms like Linq, Ledge, and Doopla are developing finance-specific AI tools—Concourse stands out with its ability to perform complex, multi-step operations. For example, it can pull data from a company’s dashboard, download it, and then copy it into an Excel file, leveraging large language models and traditional data analysis methods.
Interest in AI-driven financial automation is growing. A survey showed that 58% of finance teams now use some form of AI, with the market projected to grow 16.5% annually. However, Concourse must prove its return on investment (ROI) to gain market traction, as demonstrating the value of AI is a significant barrier for many companies.
Additionally, potential customers may be concerned about AI-related errors and data privacy. In a survey, 40% of U.K. executives highlighted AI inaccuracies as a major concern. To address this, Concourse uses fact-checking tools and ensures that customer data is not used to train its AI models unless explicitly permitted. Hafemeister emphasized the importance of accuracy and data security in finance.
Currently in beta, Concourse has already attracted clients like Instabase and Shef, and has secured $4.7 million in funding from investors including a16z, Y Combinator, and CRV. The startup is focused on expanding its product, growing its team, and building more AI-driven workflows to meet the evolving needs of finance teams.
Hafemeister’s goal is to scale Concourse by hiring engineers specializing in backend development, machine learning, and AI, and expanding the platform’s data integration capabilities.
