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 data industries like regulation and software program improvement.
"After we appeared on the economic system and requested ourselves the place AI goes to remodel the best way companies function, we targeted on data industries — particularly companies with hourly fee-based service fashions," stated Bhavin Shah, Marble's chief government officer, in an unique interview with VentureBeat. "Accounting generates $250 billion in fee-based billing within the US yearly. There's an amazing alternative to extend effectivity and enhance margins for accounting companies."
The corporate has launched a free AI-powered tax analysis instrument on its web site that converts advanced authorities tax information into accessible, citation-backed solutions for practitioners. Marble plans to increase into AI brokers that may analyze compliance eventualities and ultimately automate parts of tax preparation workflows.
Marble's backers share Shah's conviction in regards to the market. "Marble is rethinking the accounting system from the bottom up. Accounting is among the largest — and most neglected — markets in skilled companies," Chad Byers, normal associate at Susa Ventures, informed VentureBeat. "We've recognized Bhavin from his time as an government 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 — and so they see the identical large alternative we do."
The accounting {industry} misplaced 340,000 staff 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 occupation has shed roughly 340,000 staff since 2019, a 17% decline that has left companies scrambling to fulfill shopper calls for. First-time candidates for the Licensed Public Accountant examination dropped 33% between 2016 and 2021, in keeping with AICPA information, 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 occupation has struggled to deal with.
“Fewer CPAs are getting licensed 12 months over 12 months," Shah stated. "The {industry} is compressing on the identical time that there's extra work to be accomplished and the tax code is getting extra sophisticated."
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 major barrier to entry. A separate survey by the Middle 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.
Latest legislative modifications replicate the urgency. Ohio now gives alternate options to the 150-hour requirement, signaling that states are prepared to experiment with pathways that might reverse enrollment declines.
Why AI reworked regulation and software program improvement however left accounting behind
Regardless of the occupation's challenges, AI adoption in accounting has moved extra slowly than in adjoining data industries. Harvey and Legora have raised tons of of thousands and thousands to carry AI to authorized work. Cursor and different coding assistants have reworked software program improvement. Accounting, in contrast, stays largely depending on legacy analysis platforms and handbook processes.
Geordie Konrad, Marble's government 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 attorneys. 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 kind one of the vital advanced, interconnected info techniques that people have created — tens of 1000’s of interlocking guidelines, steerage paperwork, and jurisdiction-specific necessities that continuously overlap or battle.
"If you wish to put AI by way of its paces and ask how far it's are available in 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 12 months
Latest information suggests the accounting occupation'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 companies already use generative AI expertise, with 53% both planning to undertake it or actively contemplating it.
Massive accounting companies 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 expertise with technique, transactions, and tax companies. PwC estimates an entire AI-driven audit resolution will launch by 2026.
However adoption at smaller companies stays uneven. Based on Thomson Reuters analysis, 52% of tax agency respondents who use generative AI depend on open-source instruments like ChatGPT moderately than industry-specific options—a sample that might shift as purpose-built alternate options emerge.
Marble's founders consider the hesitance stems not from technophobia however from a scarcity of compelling choices.
“Corporations need 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 in regards to the occupation's billing construction.
Accounting companies have historically generated earnings by billing purchasers for workers time, usually at multiples of worker compensation prices. Junior associates performing compliance work signify a major income stream. If AI can automate that work, does it undercut the enterprise mannequin companies depend upon?
Marble's founders argue the alternative. The continual staffing scarcity has already constrained companies' skill to seize obtainable income. Advisory and consulting work — higher-margin companies that purchasers actively need — goes undone as a result of practitioners are buried in compliance duties.
"Everybody within the {industry} agrees that an unlimited quantity of advisory work merely isn't getting accomplished," Konrad stated. "Clients need it. Corporations need to do it as a result of it's high-margin, nice work. However no one will get to it."
The 2025 AICPA Nationwide Administration of an Accounting Follow Survey helps this view. Corporations reported a median 6.7% improve in internet shopper charges over the prior 12 months, with development in audit, assurance, tax companies, and shopper accounting advisory. Web remaining per associate climbed 11.9% from fiscal 12 months 2022 to fiscal 12 months 2024, reaching $252,663.
The survey additionally discovered rising curiosity in AI adoption, although most companies have but to allocate formal budgets or develop structured coaching applications. Continued adoption, the survey urged, might assist increase companies and gasoline continued development.
Accountants received't undertake AI instruments they will't belief with delicate shopper information
For AI to reach accounting, it should clear a excessive bar for information safety. Accounting companies deal with a few of the most delicate monetary info within the economic system. Practitioners can not undertake instruments that create compliance or confidentiality dangers.
Based on Avalara's survey, 63% of respondents cited information safety and privateness considerations as the highest obstacles to automating tax and finance capabilities. The priority persists all through the adoption lifecycle, from preliminary choice by way of 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 information 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 important. It's part of our onboarding and one thing that we contemplate in every little thing 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 a substitute that AI will lead to accounting jobs changing 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 change it with a job the place you're knowledgeable who’s being artistic, synthesizing concepts, and capable of delegate a variety 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 shopper outcomes. When accountants spend much less time on compliance, they will make investments extra within the strategic advisory work that purchasers worth.
"Not solely does the work grow to be extra satisfying due to what you’ll be able to deal with, however that's additionally what your purchasers 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 rivals. BlueJ, a worldwide tax analysis platform, has raised over $100 million. Thomson Reuters, CCH, and Intuit have deep buyer relationships constructed over a long time.
However the founders see alternative within the transition second.
"AI has modified what’s doable within the {industry}," Shah stated. "We’re going to work with and combine with some expertise gamers within the {industry} and in addition compete with different gamers with new merchandise powered by AI. In some circumstances we’re going to neglect in regards to the current expertise resolution for doing issues and return to the duty itself. We’ve completely new technological capabilities — how would you design one thing from a clean canvas that works with people to perform that activity?""
The choice to supply a free analysis instrument displays Marble's go-to-market philosophy. By giving practitioners entry with out a paywall, the corporate goals to construct belief and reveal functionality.
"It permits us to reveal a very compelling product that’s purpose-built to people who are fearful about learn how to use AI or query learn how to undertake it. Now they don’t have to consider buying one thing that’s cost-prohibitive once they don't know learn how to 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 advanced tax eventualities, figuring out compliance points, and ultimately automating important parts of compliance workflows — all whereas retaining practitioners in management.
The founders body success not when it comes to disruption however rebalancing. At the moment's tax work skews closely towards compliance, leaving the strategic advisory companies that purchasers crave — and that generate greater margins—perpetually undone. Marble's guess is that AI can flip that equation.
"Everybody needs it to look extra like compliance is finished easier, and also you spend time speaking about technique and planning," Konrad stated. "How do we modify that mix of compliance versus technique and planning to technique and planning first—with compliance as one thing that has been made dramatically easier?"
Whether or not Marble can execute on that imaginative and prescient stays to be seen. The corporate faces entrenched rivals, a occupation that has traditionally resisted technological change, and the inherent unpredictability of constructing AI techniques 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 expertise waves couldn’t. With fewer accountants getting into the occupation every year and shopper calls for solely rising, companies could have an elevated urge for food to embrace instruments that permit their remaining workers do extra.
"AI goes to alter each {industry} — in some circumstances in methods that may assist enterprise fashions and in some circumstances in methods that may problem them. We consider AI is in the end going to make accounting companies’ companies higher and extra worthwhile and on the identical time finish purchasers will get higher companies at higher costs," Shah stated.
The accounting occupation, it appears, is about to search out out which aspect of that equation it lands on.
