Managing and auditing expenses and invoices have long been arduous tasks for finance teams. But thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning, AppZen is changing all that.
The San Jose, California-based fintech startup makes an automated expense audit platform that integrates with popular reporting services including Oracle, Concur, Workday, and others. Thanks to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and semantic analysis the process of reviewing and approving individual line items in expense reports no longer requires a manager with its platform.
AppZen extracts information from unstructured documents such as receipts, contracts, and invoices and using AI it recognizes patterns to quickly approve expenses and analyze the financial data for the business. Every transaction is assigned a risk score, which allows the company to approve low-risk expenditures automatically and flag high-risk items to be reviewed manually.
The fintech startup has a slew of big-name customers including Airbus, Amazon, and Novartis. It recently surpassed the 1,500 customer mark, with close to a third of Fortune 500 companies among its client roster. Last year revenue quintupled and it expanded its headcount to more than 200. It expects to end the year with a 146% increase in its headcount as it launches in countries outside the U.S.
The company is on a mission to transform an area of finance that has long relied on manual processes that are time-intensive and costly. Automating much of that process stands to save companies serious money, which is why its experiencing red hot growth. In a testament to its business, earlier in September, it raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding led by Coatue Management. Geodesic Capital and existing investors, Redpoint Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, also participated in the round. All told its raised $100 million in venture funding since its inception. Proceeds from the round will go to expand its AI, engineering and product teams.
“Until now, true digital transformation in the CFO’s organization has been limited. Many finance processes require time-consuming analysis of documents like contracts, invoices, and receipts,” said AppZen co-founder and Chief Executive Anant Kale in the press release announcing the funding round. “Our AI technology learns from data, intelligence from thousands of internal and online sources, and the collective feedback from thousands of finance professionals. The result is the most effective spend auditing solution in the market today, powered by an AI platform that has been architected to solve the most critical business needs across all of finance.”
