Ex-Microsoft Execs Launch AI to Replace Excel in Finance
▼ Summary
– Many finance teams still rely on Excel for closing books and reconciliation despite using financial software, leading Maximor to develop AI agents to replace this manual work.
– Maximor’s AI system connects directly to ERP, CRM, and billing systems to unify operational and financial data, providing real-time visibility and reducing month-end closing time.
– Early customer Rently cut its closing process from eight days to four and avoided hiring two additional accountants by using Maximor’s platform, freeing up time for strategic work.
– The platform generates workpapers, reviewer notes, and audit trails to streamline audits and allows data export to Excel for compatibility with auditor and staff preferences.
– Founded by former Microsoft executives, Maximor raised a $9 million seed round and targets companies with at least $50 million in revenue, supporting GAAP and IFRS standards for global enterprises.
Despite massive investments in enterprise financial software, a surprising number of finance departments continue to depend on Excel spreadsheets for critical tasks like closing the books and preparing for audits. Two former Microsoft executives have launched a startup called Maximor to directly address this reliance, introducing an AI-powered platform designed to automate the manual labor that finance teams routinely perform.
Spreadsheets remain deeply embedded within financial operations. Even when companies utilize dedicated ERP, CRM, and billing platforms, it’s common for mid-sized and large enterprises to export transaction data into Excel for manual reconciliation. Teams frequently use these files as makeshift databases, employing functions like VLOOKUP to manually align numbers across different documents and files.
Maximor’s solution involves a network of specialized AI agents that integrate directly with a company’s existing systems, including ERPs, CRMs, and billing software. These agents continuously pull transaction data, unifying operational and financial information to provide real-time financial visibility. According to co-founder and CEO Ramnandan Krishnamurthy, this approach eliminates the traditional wait for month-end to get a clear financial picture.
The platform is designed to significantly shorten the month-end closing process. One early adopter, the proptech company Rently, reportedly reduced its closing cycle from eight days down to just four. This efficiency gain allowed Rently to avoid hiring two additional accountants. The company’s CFO, Dustin Neel, noted that his team was able to reallocate nearly half of their time toward more strategic initiatives after implementing Maximor’s agentic platform.
Maximor’s financial agents connect with popular ERPs like NetSuite and Intacct, accounting tools such as QuickBooks and Zoho Books, and various payroll, CRM, and other SaaS applications. Once integrated, the system automatically generates essential documentation, including workpapers, reviewer notes, and comprehensive audit trails, which helps streamline the entire audit preparation process.
While the core mission is to reduce dependency on Excel, the platform maintains interoperability with the ubiquitous spreadsheet software. Reconciled data can be exported directly into Excel, a format still preferred by many auditors and finance personnel for final review before submission. Krishnamurthy emphasized this flexibility, stating, “We’re interoperable with Excel on that part, as our platform does the work and can present it in our own UI or in Excel directly.”
In an interesting layer to its service, Maximor also offers access to human accountants. This serves as a human-in-the-loop option for companies using its AI or as a full outsourced accounting service for businesses without an internal finance team. Krishnamurthy clarified that the AI agents are self-sufficient, handling end-to-end work autonomously. The human element functions primarily in a reviewer capacity, mirroring the structure of traditional accounting teams where junior staff manage routine tasks and senior staff provide oversight.
Krishnamurthy co-founded Maximor in the summer of 2024 following a tenure at Microsoft, where he was a founding member of its digital transformation group and led finance and data projects for Fortune 500 clients. He partnered with Ajay Krishna Amudan, now the CTO, who had previously worked on overhauling Microsoft’s internal revenue systems. The two have collaborated for 14 years, beginning as students at IIT-Madras.
Their extensive finance and technology background at Microsoft proved instrumental in attracting a notable group of angel investors, including CFOs and finance leaders from Ramp, Gusto, MongoDB, Zuora, and several Big Four accounting firms. The $9 million seed round was led by Foundation Capital and also included participation from Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, a former classmate, Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo, and institutional investors Gaia Ventures and Boldcap.
Headquartered in New York with an additional office in Bengaluru, Maximor currently employs 18 people, split almost evenly between the United States and India, and is actively recruiting in both locations. The startup is targeting companies with annual revenues of at least $50 million and has already secured early customers in the U.S., China, and India. To support its global clientele, the software is built to accommodate both GAAP and IFRS accounting standards.
(Source: TechCrunch)
