Marble, a startup constructing synthetic intelligence brokers for tax professionals, has raised $9 million in seed funding because the accounting {industry} grapples with a deepening labor scarcity and mounting regulatory complexity.
The spherical, led by Susa Ventures with participation from MXV Capital and Konrad Capital, positions Marble to compete in a market the place AI adoption has lagged considerably behind different information industries like legislation and software program improvement.
"Once we appeared on the financial system and requested ourselves the place AI goes to rework the way in which companies function, we targeted on information industries — particularly companies with hourly fee-based service fashions," stated Bhavin Shah, Marble's chief govt officer, in an unique interview with VentureBeat. "Accounting generates $250 billion in fee-based billing within the US yearly. There's an incredible alternative to extend effectivity and enhance margins for accounting corporations."
The corporate has launched a free AI-powered tax analysis software on its web site that converts complicated authorities tax knowledge into accessible, citation-backed solutions for practitioners. Marble plans to broaden into AI brokers that may analyze compliance eventualities and finally automate parts of tax preparation workflows.
Marble's backers share Shah's conviction concerning the market. "Marble is rethinking the accounting system from the bottom up. Accounting is likely one of the greatest — and most missed — markets in skilled companies," Chad Byers, common associate at Susa Ventures, informed VentureBeat. "We've identified Bhavin from his time as an govt within the Susa portfolio, and have seen firsthand how sharp and execution-driven he’s. He and Geordie carry the right mixture of operational depth and product intuition to an area lengthy overdue for change — they usually see the identical large alternative we do."
The accounting {industry} misplaced 340,000 employees in 4 years — and replacements aren't coming
Marble enters a market formed by structural forces which have basically altered the economics {of professional} accounting.
The accounting career has shed roughly 340,000 employees since 2019, a 17% decline that has left corporations scrambling to fulfill consumer calls for. First-time candidates for the Licensed Public Accountant examination dropped 33% between 2016 and 2021, in keeping with AICPA knowledge, and 2022 noticed the bottom variety of examination takers in 17 years.
The exodus comes as child boomers exit en masse. The American Institute of CPAs estimates that roughly 75% of all licensed CPAs reached retirement age by 2019, making a demographic cliff that the career has struggled to handle.
“Fewer CPAs are getting licensed yr over yr," Shah stated. "The {industry} is compressing on the similar time that there's extra work to be achieved and the tax code is getting extra difficult."
The Nationwide Pipeline Advisory Group, a multi-stakeholder physique shaped by the AICPA in July 2023, launched a report figuring out the 150-hour schooling requirement for CPA licensure as a big barrier to entry. A separate survey by the Heart for Audit High quality discovered that 57% of enterprise majors who selected to not pursue accounting cited the extra credit score hours as a deterrent.
Current legislative modifications replicate the urgency. Ohio now affords alternate options to the 150-hour requirement, signaling that states are keen to experiment with pathways that would reverse enrollment declines.
Why AI remodeled legislation and software program improvement however left accounting behind
Regardless of the career's challenges, AI adoption in accounting has moved extra slowly than in adjoining information industries. Harvey and Legora have raised a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands to carry AI to authorized work. Cursor and different coding assistants have remodeled software program improvement. Accounting, against this, stays largely depending on legacy analysis platforms and handbook processes.
Geordie Konrad, Marble's govt chairman and a co-founder of restaurant software program firm TouchBistro, attributes the hole to how individuals conceptualize AI's capabilities.
“It was apparent to many individuals that LLMs might do significant work by manipulating code for software program builders and manipulating phrases for legal professionals. Within the accounting {industry}, LLMs are going for use as reasoning brokers," Konrad stated. " That requires a bit extra of a two-step evaluation to see why it's an enormous alternative."
The technical problem is substantial. Tax laws type some of the complicated, interconnected info programs that people have created — tens of 1000’s of interlocking guidelines, steerage paperwork, and jurisdiction-specific necessities that incessantly overlap or battle.
"If you wish to put AI by its paces and ask how far it's are available replicating cognitive capabilities, that is an unbelievable playground to work in," Konrad stated.
A dramatic shift: AI adoption amongst tax and finance groups doubles in a single yr
Current knowledge suggests the accounting career's stance towards AI is shifting quickly.
A 2025 survey from Hanover Analysis and Avalara discovered that 84% of finance and tax groups now use AI closely of their operations, up from 47% in 2024. The 2025 Generative AI in Skilled Companies Report from Thomson Reuters Institute discovered that 21% of tax corporations already use generative AI know-how, with 53% both planning to undertake it or actively contemplating it.
Giant accounting corporations have invested closely in AI infrastructure. Deloitte has developed generative AI capabilities inside its audit platform. BDO introduced a $1B funding in AI over the subsequent 5 years. EY launched an AI platform combining know-how with technique, transactions, and tax companies. PwC estimates an entire AI-driven audit answer will launch by 2026.
However adoption at smaller corporations stays uneven. In line with Thomson Reuters analysis, 52% of tax agency respondents who use generative AI depend on open-source instruments like ChatGPT relatively than industry-specific options—a sample that would shift as purpose-built alternate options emerge.
Marble's founders imagine the hesitance stems not from technophobia however from a scarcity of compelling choices.
“Companies wish to embrace AI," Shah stated. “They only haven't seen nice software program and tooling made for them. That's a part of the chance — to work with them and construct one thing they're excited to make use of on a day-to-day foundation.”
Can synthetic intelligence rescue accounting's billable-hour enterprise mannequin?
AI's arrival in accounting raises questions concerning the career's billing construction.
Accounting corporations have historically generated income by billing shoppers for workers time, usually at multiples of worker compensation prices. Junior associates performing compliance work signify a big income stream. If AI can automate that work, does it undercut the enterprise mannequin corporations depend upon?
Marble's founders argue the other. The persistent staffing scarcity has already constrained corporations' capability to seize accessible income. Advisory and consulting work — higher-margin companies that shoppers actively need — goes undone as a result of practitioners are buried in compliance duties.
"Everybody within the {industry} agrees that an infinite quantity of advisory work merely isn't getting achieved," Konrad stated. "Clients need it. Companies wish to do it as a result of it's high-margin, nice work. However no person will get to it."
The 2025 AICPA Nationwide Administration of an Accounting Observe Survey helps this view. Companies reported a median 6.7% enhance in internet consumer charges over the prior yr, with progress in audit, assurance, tax companies, and consumer accounting advisory. Internet remaining per associate climbed 11.9% from fiscal yr 2022 to fiscal yr 2024, reaching $252,663.
The survey additionally discovered rising curiosity in AI adoption, although most corporations have but to allocate formal budgets or develop structured coaching packages. Continued adoption, the survey steered, might assist broaden companies and gas continued progress.
Accountants gained't undertake AI instruments they will't belief with delicate consumer knowledge
For AI to reach accounting, it should clear a excessive bar for knowledge safety. Accounting corporations deal with a few of the most delicate monetary info within the financial system. Practitioners can’t undertake instruments that create compliance or confidentiality dangers.
In line with Avalara's survey, 63% of respondents cited knowledge safety and privateness issues as the highest limitations to automating tax and finance capabilities. The priority persists all through the adoption lifecycle, from preliminary choice by implementation and ongoing use.
Marble has made safety a foundational precedence. The corporate obtained software program compliance certification earlier than releasing any product and maintains that knowledge privateness is embedded in its operational tradition from day one.
"Safety is on the core of what we’re constructing," Shah stated. "Each worker is aware of that safety is essential. It's part of our onboarding and one thing that we take into account in the whole lot we do."
From quantity crunchers to strategic advisors: How AI might reshape accounting careers
Marble's founders reject the narrative that AI will solely take away from accounting jobs. They suggest as an alternative that AI will lead to accounting jobs turning into extra strategic and fewer characterised by repetitive execution.
They draw an analogy to structure, the place computer-aided design changed laborious handbook drafting. Architects didn’t disappear — they gained instruments that permit them spend extra time on artistic design and fewer on mechanical copy.
"In the event you take a few of the hours-intensive, much less artistic work out of what being a junior or intermediate accountant is, and also you exchange it with a task the place you're an expert who’s being artistic, synthesizing concepts, and in a position to delegate plenty of duties to AI assistant platform options, you find yourself with an {industry} that's simply much more enjoyable to function in," Konrad stated.
The shift might additionally enhance consumer outcomes. When accountants spend much less time on compliance, they will make investments extra within the strategic advisory work that shoppers worth.
"Not solely does the work grow to be extra gratifying due to what you may give attention to, however that's additionally what your shoppers are going to worth extra from you," Shah stated.
The aggressive panorama: Marble faces well-funded rivals and legacy giants
Marble enters a market with formidable incumbents and well-funded opponents. BlueJ, a world tax analysis platform, has raised over $100 million. Thomson Reuters, CCH, and Intuit have deep buyer relationships constructed over many years.
However the founders see alternative within the transition second.
"AI has modified what’s attainable within the {industry}," Shah stated. "We’re going to work with and combine with some know-how gamers within the {industry} and in addition compete with different gamers with new merchandise powered by AI. In some instances we’re going to overlook concerning the current know-how answer for doing issues and return to the duty itself. Now we have completely new technological capabilities — how would you design one thing from a clean canvas that works with people to perform that process?""
The choice to supply a free analysis software displays Marble's go-to-market philosophy. By giving practitioners entry and not using a paywall, the corporate goals to construct belief and display functionality.
"It permits us to show a very compelling product that’s purpose-built to people who are apprehensive about how you can use AI or query how you can undertake it. Now they don’t have to consider buying one thing that’s cost-prohibitive once they don't know how you can combine it into their workflow," Shah stated.
The $250 billion query: Can a startup remodel how America does its taxes?
Marble's roadmap extends past analysis. The corporate plans to develop AI brokers able to analyzing complicated tax eventualities, figuring out compliance points, and finally automating important parts of compliance workflows — all whereas holding practitioners in management.
The founders body success not when it comes to disruption however rebalancing. As we speak's tax work skews closely towards compliance, leaving the strategic advisory companies that shoppers crave — and that generate greater margins—perpetually undone. Marble's wager is that AI can flip that equation.
"Everybody desires it to look extra like compliance is completed less complicated, and also you spend time speaking about technique and planning," Konrad stated. "How do we alter that mix of compliance versus technique and planning to technique and planning first—with compliance as one thing that has been made dramatically less complicated?"
Whether or not Marble can execute on that imaginative and prescient stays to be seen. The corporate faces entrenched opponents, a career that has traditionally resisted technological change, and the inherent unpredictability of constructing AI programs for high-stakes monetary work.
However the founders are betting that the {industry}'s demographic shift will speed up adoption in ways in which earlier know-how waves couldn’t. With fewer accountants getting into the career annually and consumer calls for solely rising, corporations might have an elevated urge for food to embrace instruments that permit their remaining employees do extra.
"AI goes to alter each {industry} — in some instances in methods that can assist enterprise fashions and in some instances in methods that can problem them. We imagine AI is in the end going to make accounting corporations’ companies higher and extra worthwhile and on the similar time finish shoppers will get higher companies at higher costs," Shah stated.
The accounting career, it appears, is about to search out out which facet of that equation it lands on.
