Rillet, an AI-native accounting platform, raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation in just 48 hours, according to CEO and co-founder Nicolas Kopp. The company closed the round immediately after a board meeting where it presented growth metrics, including a doubling of its annualized revenue rate in the last quarter and new clients, many of them public companies. The funding round was led by Iconiq, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. Kopp said the company was not looking to raise capital, but investor interest came together quickly after the board presentation.
Rillet emerged from stealth two years ago and has now raised $200 million in total from top investors. The startup has amassed 600 customers, mostly businesses replacing legacy accounting systems from Oracle and NetSuite, along with Intuit and other competitors. Kopp said customers are not piloting the platform but are actively removing enterprise resource planning and accounting software from rivals. The company also formed an alliance with EY to introduce AI tools to the auditing firm.
The rapid deal was not a cold start, according to Seth Pierrepont, a general partner at Iconiq who led the round. Pierrepont said Rillet had already proven it could win against incumbents that have dominated the category for decades, and that a year of watching the team deliver made leading the Series C an easy call. Julien Bek, Sequoia’s lead investor on the deal, echoed that sentiment, saying reinvesting was a very easy decision after the company’s growth. Bek noted that Rillet’s initial focus is accounting, but the company is ultimately reinventing the entire finance function, with agentic finance potentially becoming one of the largest application software opportunities of the AI era.
Rillet was built for AI agents rather than humans, allowing people to work alongside the agents on corporate bookkeeping. Clients range from laundromats to a major sports franchise, and about half come from Intuit, with 30% from NetSuite and Sage Intacct and 20% from Oracle, SAP, Workday, and Microsoft products. Kopp said security is critical with sensitive client data, so the platform includes model routing, letting customers direct requests to a foundational model of their choice, such as OpenAI or Anthropic. The system prevents models from training on customer data, and there is no cross-training, meaning one customer’s data remains proprietary.
About three months ago, Rillet released a governance feature that lets accountants see and audit every decision an AI agent has made, including the numbers pulled and how they were calculated. Kopp said this feature was only possible because AI agents have become powerful enough to support multi-step workflows over longer periods, making auditing more important for clients. He said the company has barely scratched the surface of the technology’s potential.
Kopp said he does not expect mass job displacement from AI anytime soon, especially in accounting. The U.S. faces a shortage of accountants, with the number of accounting graduates declining since at least 2010, and a Controllers Council report found that 61% of finance leaders struggled to find finance, accounting, and CPA talent in the past year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects accounting-related roles will grow by at least 5%, adding 72,800 jobs by 2034, and expects AI to shift accountants toward advisory and analytical duties rather than reduce demand. Kopp said regulations currently require human approval for transactions made by AI agents, and he is hopeful rules will evolve to align with where the technology is heading.
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