Marble Seed Round Tackles Accounting Crunch

AI startup Marble targets accounting’s labor and complexity crunch

As the accounting profession struggles with a shrinking workforce and rising regulatory complexity, Marble is betting that ai tax agents can help firms manage both pressure and growth.

The San Francisco-based startup has raised $9 million in seed funding to build artificial intelligence tools for tax professionals. The round was led by Susa Ventures, with participation from MXV Capital and Konrad Capital, positioning Marble in a market where AI adoption has trailed other knowledge industries.

“When we looked at the economy and asked ourselves where AI is going to transform the way businesses operate, we focused on knowledge industries — specifically businesses with hourly fee-based service models,” chief executive Bhavin Shah told VentureBeat. Moreover, he noted that accounting generates $250 billion in fee-based billing in the US annually, creating a vast efficiency opportunity.

Marble has already launched a free AI-powered tax research tool on its website. The product converts complex government tax material into accessible, citation-backed answers for practitioners, and it is designed to become a gateway to more advanced automation capabilities over time.

The company plans to expand from research into AI agents that can analyze compliance scenarios and eventually automate significant portions of tax preparation workflows. That said, Marble insists these systems will augment professionals, not replace them, by handling routine analysis and documentation.

Backers say the startup is tackling one of the largest untapped markets in professional services. “Marble is rethinking the accounting system from the ground up. Accounting is one of the biggest — and most overlooked — markets in professional services,” said Chad Byers, general partner at Susa Ventures. He praised Shah and executive chairman Geordie Konrad for pairing operational depth with strong product instincts in a sector that is, in his words, “long overdue for change.”

The talent pipeline crisis reshaping accounting economics

Marble is entering an industry undergoing structural upheaval. Since 2019, the accounting profession has lost roughly 340,000 workers, a 17% decline that has left firms struggling to meet client demand and maintain service levels.

The pipeline of new Certified Public Accountants is also weakening. First-time candidates for the CPA exam fell 33% between 2016 and 2021, according to AICPA data, and 2022 recorded the fewest exam takers in 17 years. However, client expectations and regulatory demands continue to rise.

The American Institute of CPAs estimates that about 75% of all licensed CPAs had reached retirement age by 2019, creating a demographic cliff. “Fewer CPAs are getting certified year over year,” Shah said. “The industry is compressing at the same time that there’s more work to be done and the tax code is getting more complicated.”

In response, the National Pipeline Advisory Group, formed by the AICPA in July 2023, highlighted the 150-hour education requirement for CPA licensure as a major barrier to entry. A separate survey from the Center for Audit Quality reported that 57% of business majors who skipped accounting cited the extra credit hours as a deterrent.

Legislators are beginning to react. Ohio now offers alternatives to the 150-hour requirement, signaling a willingness among states to experiment with new pathways that could stem enrollment declines and stabilize the talent pool.

Why AI transformed law and coding before accounting

Despite mounting pressures, AI adoption in accounting has lagged behind sectors such as law and software development. Tools like Harvey and Legora have raised hundreds of millions to augment legal work, while coding assistants such as Cursor have reshaped how developers write software.

Accounting, by contrast, still leans heavily on legacy research platforms and manual processes. Konrad, who co-founded restaurant software company TouchBistro, believes this gap reflects how professionals think about AI. In his view, many observers saw immediately how large language models could manipulate code or legal text but needed more imagination to see their role in tax reasoning.

“It was obvious to many people that LLMs could do meaningful work by manipulating code for software developers and manipulating words for lawyers. In the accounting industry, LLMs are going to be used as reasoning agents,” Konrad said. However, he added that this use case requires “a bit more of a two-step analysis” to grasp the scale of the opportunity.

The technical challenge is formidable. Tax regulation is one of the most complex, interconnected information systems humans have created, combining tens of thousands of interlocking rules, guidance documents, and jurisdiction-specific requirements. These elements frequently overlap or conflict, increasing the risk of error.

“If you want to put AI through its paces and ask how far it’s come in replicating cognitive functions, this is an unbelievable playground to work in,” Konrad said, arguing that tax is an ideal stress test for advanced reasoning systems.

AI adoption among tax and finance teams accelerates

Recent research suggests that attitudes toward AI within accounting and tax departments are shifting quickly. A 2025 survey from Hanover Research and Avalara found that 84% of finance and tax teams now use AI heavily in their operations, up from 47% in 2024.

The 2025 Generative AI in Professional Services Report from the Thomson Reuters Institute reached similar conclusions. It found that 21% of tax firms already use generative AI technologies, with 53% either planning to adopt them or actively considering them. Moreover, many respondents linked these tools to future competitiveness.

Large firms are building substantial AI infrastructure. Deloitte has embedded generative AI in its audit platform. BDO has committed $1B to AI over the next five years. EY launched a platform that combines AI with strategy, transactions, and tax services, while PwC projects a fully AI-driven audit solution by 2026.

Smaller firms, however, show more uneven adoption patterns. According to Thomson Reuters, 52% of tax firms using generative AI rely on open-source tools such as ChatGPT rather than industry-specific systems. That said, analysts expect this pattern to shift as purpose-built solutions gain traction.

Marble’s founders argue that the gap is less about resistance to technology and more about the absence of approachable, tailored offerings. Many practices, they say, are still waiting for ai tax research tools and workflows that feel designed for day-to-day use.

Business model pressures and the promise of automation

The advance of AI raises fundamental questions about how accounting firms make money. For decades, firms have relied on billable hours, charging clients multiples of staff compensation for time spent on compliance and assurance work.

Junior associates performing tax compliance have long been a key profit center. If AI automates much of that work, some partners fear it could undermine the traditional revenue base. However, Marble’s leadership contends that chronic staffing shortages already prevent firms from capturing all available demand.

Advisory and consulting assignments, which clients value and which carry higher margins, often go unserved because teams are buried in routine compliance tasks. “Everyone in the industry agrees that an enormous amount of advisory work simply isn’t getting done,” Konrad said. “Customers want it. Firms want to do it because it’s high-margin, great work. But nobody gets to it.”

Data from the 2025 AICPA National Management of an Accounting Practice Survey supports this thesis. Firms reported a median 6.7% increase in net client fees over the prior year, with growth across audit, assurance, tax services, and client accounting advisory segments.

Net remaining per partner climbed 11.9% from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2024, reaching $252,663. Moreover, the survey documented rising interest in AI, though most firms have yet to formalize budgets or robust training programs. Continued adoption, it suggested, could support expanded services and sustained revenue growth.

Security as a prerequisite for AI in accounting

For accountants, any new technology must clear a high bar on data protection. Firms routinely handle some of the most sensitive financial and personal information in the economy, and cannot risk confidentiality breaches or compliance failures.

In Avalara’s survey, 63% of respondents cited data security and privacy as the top barrier to automating tax and finance functions. These worries span the entire adoption cycle, from vendor evaluation to implementation and ongoing use. However, they do not negate the appetite for automation if trust can be established.

Marble has made security a core design principle. The company secured software compliance certification before releasing product to market and emphasizes that data privacy is embedded in its operations from day one. Shah describes this as cultural, not just technical.

“Security is at the core of what we are building,” he said. “Every employee knows that security is critical. It’s a part of our onboarding and something that we consider in everything we do.” For firms weighing ai software for accounting, such assurances are becoming table stakes.

From number crunchers to strategic advisors

Marble’s founders reject the idea that AI will simply eliminate accounting jobs. Instead, they argue it will shift the profession away from repetitive execution and toward higher-value strategic work, particularly in tax planning and business advisory.

They liken the transition to architecture’s move from manual drafting to computer-aided design. Architects did not disappear; CAD tools allowed them to spend more time on creative problem-solving and less on mechanical drawing. That said, they acknowledge that job roles and training will evolve.

“If you take some of the hours-intensive, less creative work out of what being a junior or intermediate accountant is, and you replace it with a role where you’re a professional who is being creative, synthesizing ideas, and able to delegate a lot of tasks to AI assistant platform solutions, you end up with an industry that’s just a lot more fun to operate in,” Konrad said.

The shift could also improve client outcomes. When professionals are freed from low-level compliance work, they can focus on forward-looking planning and strategic advice that clients value more. Moreover, such services are often less vulnerable to fee compression than routine filing tasks.

“Not only does the work become more enjoyable because of what you can focus on, but that’s also what your clients are going to value more from you,” Shah said, suggesting that AI could ultimately make accounting careers more attractive.

Competitive landscape and Marble’s go-to-market bet

Marble is not alone in targeting tax and accounting. Toronto-based BlueJ, a global tax research platform, has raised over $100 million. Legacy giants such as Thomson Reuters, CCH, and Intuit also hold deep customer relationships and control many firms’ existing research and compliance workflows.

Even so, Shah argues that the technology reset created by generative AI opens new space for entrants. “AI has changed what’s possible in the industry,” he said. “We are going to work with and integrate with some technology players in the industry and also compete with other players with new products powered by AI.”

In some cases, Marble intends to set aside traditional workflows and start from first principles. The founders ask how tasks should be designed if one begins with modern AI capabilities and then optimizes the human-computer partnership, rather than retrofitting existing tools.

The decision to offer a free research tool reflects this go-to-market philosophy. By removing the paywall, Marble hopes to lower experimentation friction, build trust, and showcase what purpose-built ai tax research systems can do for practitioners.

“It allows us to expose a really compelling product that is purpose-built to those that are worried about how to use AI or question how to adopt it,” Shah said. Moreover, he argued that eliminating upfront cost helps firms that do not yet know how to integrate AI into their daily workflow.

Can AI rebalance compliance and strategy in tax?

Marble’s roadmap extends well beyond its initial research offering. The company aims to build ai tax agents capable of analyzing complex scenarios, flagging compliance issues, and automating substantial portions of tax workflows, all while keeping practitioners firmly in control.

The founders frame their goal not as disruption but as rebalancing. Today, tax practices devote most of their time to compliance, leaving strategic advisory work — which clients crave and which carries higher margins — chronically under-served. Moreover, staffing shortages only intensify this imbalance.

“Everyone wants it to look more like compliance is done simpler, and you spend time talking about strategy and planning,” Konrad said. “How do we change that blend of compliance versus strategy and planning to strategy and planning first — with compliance as something that has been made dramatically simpler?”

Whether Marble can deliver on this vision remains uncertain. The company faces entrenched incumbents, a profession known for cautious technology adoption, and the intrinsic difficulty of building reliable AI systems for high-stakes financial decisions.

Yet the founders believe demographic and economic forces will accelerate change in ways previous software waves did not. With fewer accountants entering the field each year and client demands only growing, firms may be more willing to embrace automation that enables remaining staff to do more with less.

“AI is going to change every industry — in some cases in ways that will help business models and in some cases in ways that will challenge them. We believe AI is ultimately going to make accounting firms’ businesses better and more profitable and at the same time end clients will get better services at better prices,” Shah said.

As the accounting profession tests these assumptions in the years leading up to 2026 and beyond, it will discover whether AI becomes a margin threat, a competitive edge, or — as Marble is betting — a foundation for a more strategic, resilient business model.