The need for embedded finance for Vertical SaaS is growing exponentially but accounting is the most demanded feature that has not yet been incorporated. The absence of an accounting solution is the top reason for the lack of adoption of financial services features. By offering software directly within their platforms, Teal’s customers create a financial hub that enhances engagement with the rest of their financial service products such as payments, invoices, and banking.
The Canadian startup specialising in accounting infrastructure for Vertical SaaS businesses has raised $8 million in seed funding. The round was led by Torch Capital (which backed Baselayer and Creature Comforts) with participation from Basis Set Ventures, General Advance, Dash Fund, and angel investors including executives at Service Titan, Plaid, Brex, Unit, and Gusto.
Accounting for SMBs made seamless
Founded by industry veterans Ian Crosby and Adam Saint, Teal leverages their experience founding Bench Accounting and working at Shopify. It allows Vertical SaaS businesses to build their own accounting suites to offer to their SMB customers.
Teal equips companies with the APIs and tools to build their own accounting offerings for small business customers, allowing the end-customer SMBs to draw critical insights like real-time cash flow and per-product profitability, as well as file their taxes and get support from live bookkeepers.
With Teal, these companies can offer their small business customers critical insights like real-time cash flow, detailed profitability analysis, and tracking overdue invoices. As per the company, it offers a suite of out-of-the-box tools to allow Vertical SaaS companies to launch their accounting platforms in as little as four weeks, including fully functioning app code repositories and native data integrations with external data sources such as Plaid.
“Teal is building the Stripe for accounting. Just like Stripe provides the underlying infrastructure for Vertical SaaS companies to build payments products, Teal provides the infrastructure for Vertical SaaS companies to build and offer accounting features within their platforms,” said Ian Crosby, Co-Founder and CEO of Teal. “Having led Bench Accounting, the largest bookkeeping service for SMBs for a decade, I saw firsthand the limitations of standalone accounting software that is not integrated into the rest of a business’ core platform. We built Teal to address this problem.”
“We’re thrilled to be supporting Teal in its mission to revolutionise the accounting space for SMBs. There are 30M+ SMBs in the US, and at Torch, we invest behind the tools and platforms that help their businesses thrive. There’s a huge, dire need for streamlined and intuitive accounting tools, and Teal’s embedded approach, coupled with Ian and team’s proven track record of building standout financial software will address these long standing pain points. Teal’s rapid growth and early success are a testament to this,” added Katie Reiner, Partner at Torch Capital.
