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 growth.
“Once we regarded on the financial system and requested ourselves the place AI goes to rework the way in which companies function, we centered on data industries — particularly companies with hourly fee-based service fashions,” mentioned 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 is a large alternative to extend effectivity and enhance margins for accounting companies.”
The corporate has launched a free AI-powered tax research tool on its web site that converts complicated authorities tax knowledge 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 concerning the market. “Marble is rethinking the accounting system from the bottom up. Accounting is among the greatest — and most ignored — markets in skilled providers,” Chad Byers, basic companion at Susa Ventures, advised VentureBeat. “We have 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 convey the proper 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 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 workers since 2019, a 17% decline that has left companies 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 data, 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 handle.
“Fewer CPAs are getting licensed yr over yr,” Shah mentioned. “The {industry} is compressing on the similar time that there is extra work to be performed and the tax code is getting extra difficult.”
The National Pipeline Advisory Group, a multi-stakeholder physique shaped by the AICPA in July 2023, launched a report figuring out the 150-hour education requirement for CPA licensure as a major 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 mirror the urgency. Ohio now presents alternate options to the 150-hour requirement, signaling that states are prepared to experiment with pathways that would reverse enrollment declines.
Why AI remodeled regulation and software program growth 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 hundreds of thousands to convey AI to authorized work. Cursor and different coding assistants have remodeled software program growth. 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 folks 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 mentioned. ” That requires a bit extra of a two-step evaluation to see why it is a massive alternative.”
The technical problem is substantial. Tax rules kind some of the complicated, interconnected data methods that people have created — tens of 1000’s of interlocking guidelines, steering paperwork, and jurisdiction-specific necessities that often overlap or battle.
“If you wish to put AI by way of its paces and ask how far it is are available replicating cognitive features, that is an unbelievable playground to work in,” Konrad mentioned.
A dramatic shift: AI adoption amongst tax and finance groups doubles in a single yr
Current knowledge suggests the accounting occupation’s stance towards AI is shifting quickly.
A 2025 survey from Hanover Research 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 providers. PwC estimates an entire AI-driven audit resolution will launch by 2026.
However adoption at smaller companies stays uneven. In response to Thomson Reuters research, 52% of tax agency respondents who use generative AI depend on open-source instruments like ChatGPT quite than industry-specific options—a sample that would shift as purpose-built alternate options emerge.
Marble’s founders consider the hesitance stems not from technophobia however from an absence of compelling choices.
“Corporations wish to embrace AI,” Shah mentioned. “They simply have not seen nice software program and tooling made for them. That is 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 occupation’s billing construction.
Accounting companies have historically generated income by billing purchasers for workers time, usually at multiples of worker compensation prices. Junior associates performing compliance work symbolize a major income stream. If AI can automate that work, does it undercut the enterprise mannequin companies depend upon?
Marble’s founders argue the other. The persistent staffing scarcity has already constrained companies’ capacity to seize obtainable income. Advisory and consulting work — higher-margin providers that purchasers 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 is not getting performed,” Konrad mentioned. “Prospects need it. Corporations wish to do it as a result of it is high-margin, nice work. However no person will get to it.”
The 2025 AICPA National Management of an Accounting Practice Survey helps this view. Corporations reported a median 6.7% enhance in internet consumer charges over the prior yr, with progress in audit, assurance, tax providers, and consumer accounting advisory. Internet remaining per companion 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 companies have but to allocate formal budgets or develop structured coaching applications. Continued adoption, the survey recommended, might assist increase providers and gas continued progress.
Accountants will not undertake AI instruments they cannot belief with delicate consumer knowledge
For AI to reach accounting, it should clear a excessive bar for knowledge safety. Accounting companies deal with a few of the most delicate monetary data within the financial system. Practitioners can’t undertake instruments that create compliance or confidentiality dangers.
In response to Avalara’s survey, 63% of respondents cited knowledge safety and privateness considerations as the highest limitations to automating tax and finance features. 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 knowledge privateness is embedded in its operational tradition from day one.
“Safety is on the core of what we’re constructing,” Shah mentioned. “Each worker is aware of that safety is important. It is part of our onboarding and one thing that we contemplate in every part 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 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 allow them spend extra time on artistic design and fewer on mechanical replica.
“Should 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 task the place you are an expert who’s being artistic, synthesizing concepts, and capable of delegate numerous duties to AI assistant platform options, you find yourself with an {industry} that is simply much more enjoyable to function in,” Konrad mentioned.
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 purchasers worth.
“Not solely does the work grow to be extra pleasurable due to what you possibly can deal with, however that is additionally what your purchasers are going to worth extra from you,” Shah mentioned.
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 mentioned. “We’re going to work with and combine with some expertise gamers within the {industry} and likewise compete with different gamers with new merchandise powered by AI. In some instances we’re going to overlook concerning the current expertise resolution 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 device displays Marble’s go-to-market philosophy. By giving practitioners entry with out a paywall, the corporate goals to construct belief and display functionality.
“It permits us to show a extremely compelling product that’s purpose-built to those who are fearful about how one can use AI or query how one can undertake it. Now they don’t have to consider buying one thing that’s cost-prohibitive when they do not know how one can combine it into their workflow,” Shah mentioned.
The $250 billion query: Can a startup rework 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 ultimately automating vital parts of compliance workflows — all whereas retaining practitioners in management.
The founders body success not by way of disruption however rebalancing. Immediately’s tax work skews closely towards compliance, leaving the strategic advisory providers that purchasers crave — and that generate larger 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 mentioned. “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 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 methods 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 coming into the occupation every year and consumer calls for solely rising, companies could have an elevated urge for food to embrace instruments that allow 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 consider AI is finally going to make accounting companies’ companies higher and extra worthwhile and on the similar time finish purchasers will get higher providers at higher costs,” Shah mentioned.
The accounting occupation, it appears, is about to search out out which aspect of that equation it lands on.
