Khosla Ventures Leads Synthetic's $10 Million Seed Round for Autonomous AI Bookkeeping
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · May 14
Khosla Ventures Leads Synthetic's $10 Million Seed Round for Autonomous AI Bookkeeping
4 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · May 14
$10 million in seed funding will bankroll Synthetic, Ian Crosby's new startup building a fully autonomous AI bookkeeper that aims to produce accrual-based financials without human involvement.
Khosla backed the company even though the product is still in design and Crosby says current AI models may not yet be reliable enough to make the vision work at scale.
Jon Chu said the firm leaned into Crosby's controversial track record after Bench collapsed in 2024, arguing his later roles at Shopify and Teal showed he had learned from earlier mistakes.
Synthetic plans to focus on AI and software startups first, while Crosby says the company can wait for stronger foundation models because the new round gives it years of runway.
Can a founder with a history of failure succeed by betting on AI that currently fails at the same task?
What happens when a fully autonomous AI bookkeeper makes its first multi-million dollar mistake?