Young Entrepreneur Launches OpenLedger, Raises $3 Million for AI-Driven Accounting Solution
At just 24 years old, Pryce Yebesi has already made waves in the tech industry by selling his crypto invoicing company, Utopia Labs, to Coinbase for an undisclosed sum. Not pausing for a moment, Yebesi is now venturing into his next big idea: OpenLedger, a company offering advanced accounting software that is seamlessly integrated into the existing tools used by medium to large enterprises.
OpenLedger has successfully raised $3 million in funding, with Kindred Ventures leading the investment round. This move marks another significant milestone for Yebesi, who believes in creating solutions that respond directly to the current needs of businesses. The idea for OpenLedger germinated while he was still with Utopia Labs. As the chief product officer there, Yebesi noticed many businesses were lagging in terms of accounting technology.
"When we built invoicing products at Utopia, we saved our customers 70-80% of the time they spent on accounting tasks," Yebesi explained. "That experience led me to realize the need for more extensible and embedded accounting solutions. OpenLedger is our answer to that challenge. An AI-driven, modular accounting tool that lives where our customers already work."
Post-acquisition, Yebesi joined Washington University in St. Louis as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Here, he collaborated with small businesses, understanding their common plight with outdated accounting systems. Partnering with Ashytn Bell, a former venture capital firm associate, they launched OpenLedger, aiming to revamp the financial data processing field with innovative AI solutions.
The platform offers a variety of accounting features through embeddable components, APIs, and a ledger framework, allowing AI to handle categorization, reconciliation, and financial reports with comprehensive financial context. "OpenLedger aggregates and orchestrates every data source for companies, then allows AI to execute accounting functions with full financial context," Yebesi emphasized.
Despite the presence of established names like QuickBooks in the space, and emerging startups such as Layer and Teal, OpenLedger distinguishes itself with a unique approach to the data layer of financial transactions.
The system has been meticulously crafted over seven months of rigorous development, focusing on building databases that interact with large language models (LLMs) without compromising consumer privacy. "With this, we're about to minimize context limits, latency, and security issues," Yebesi stated.
Raising capital was a smooth process for OpenLedger, partly thanks to Kindred's previous investment in Utopia's pre-seed round. Other notable investors include Adventure Fund, Venture at Brex, Guy Friedman of SteadyMD, and Zach Abram, who recently sold Bridge to Stripe.
While Yebesi refrained from naming specific clients, OpenLedger has already signed contracts with various SaaS companies, fintech outfits, and banks, targeting small- and medium-sized business clientele. Currently in beta, OpenLedger plans a full market release by month's end. The funding will primarily be used to expand its team, particularly in product, engineering, and business development roles.
"We're putting a lot towards hiring great talent, training great models for financial work internally, and investing a lot in compliance early," Yebesi remarked. The company's ambitious aim is to support a million end users by year-end, focusing on enabling businesses to dedicate more time to their customers rather than their accounts.
"Keep a lean team," Yebesi advises, "And help thousands of small businesses spend more time with their customers and less time closing their books."