Ian Crosby’s Second Chance with Synthetic: Betting on AI in Accounting
Ian Crosby, who previously faced significant challenges with his first startup, Bench Accounting, which shut down in 2024 before being bought for scraps, is now back with a new venture. This time around, he aims to build an AI-driven solution that automates the complex tasks of bookkeeping.
Crosby’s latest project, Synthetic, seeks to develop a fully autonomous AI system capable of generating financial reports without human intervention. Although still in development, the startup has already secured $10 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures and other investors like Basis Set Ventures and Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke.
Despite the difficulties faced by Crosby in his previous venture, where he was ousted by the board after turning down a lucrative acquisition offer, many of his former colleagues have been supportive. They believe that the lessons learned from Bench have prepared him for this new endeavor.
The Khosla partner, Jon Chu, has shown a willingness to back entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks and learn from their past failures. This aligns with Crosby’s vision of building an AI-driven bookkeeping service rather than relying on human accountants, which is currently the norm in the industry.
However, there remains considerable uncertainty about how well such a system will scale, as it still relies heavily on foundational models that are not yet reliable for tasks like financial calculations. Crosby acknowledges this risk but believes he has enough capital to wait for these technologies to mature further.
Key Takeaways
- Crosby’s experience with Bench provides valuable lessons, despite the negative outcome of the company.
- The $10 million seed funding underscores investor confidence in Crosby and his vision for Synthetic.
- Synthetic plans to focus on serving AI and software startups, which may help mitigate some of the technical challenges associated with this type of technology.
Originally published at techcrunch.com. Curated by AI Maestro.
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