From Point Solutions to Platforms

An update on Accounting Fintech Ventures, the $135B small firm market, and why accounting tech should disappear 🤖

🏕️ Livin' Life

If you missed our last piece on accounting’s AI inflection point, catch it here. As for, June the partners have had a pretty meaningful month. Lot’s of graduations to celebrate. Michael Ly and Marissa Jones completed their certification at VC Lab, the leading VC program for ethical impact investing. The partners also got to kick off summer with some time with family, friends, and graduations. Special congratulations to our partner Mike Payne whose daughter graduated! 🎉 Micheal got to hang out with one of our favorite founders Tal Bassat from Anchor.

Also, some exciting movement with our startup founders, the founders of AF Tech community are meeting regularly on Friday’s. If you know any founders looking for community and support, send them our way.

🌎 Our Mission

As a reminder, at Accounting Fintech Ventures, we support early stage companies in the accounting tech and fintech space. We provide advisory services to startups and provide investment management services to funds focused on the accounting tech and fintech arenas.

🛠️ What We’re Building

Our thesis still holds: the next generation of accounting infrastructure won’t be a monolith—it’ll be built on layers, stitched together through smart integrations and intentional design.

We’re backing point solutions with potential to evolve into something bigger. Think: vertical SaaS with real AI under the hood. Think: cash-flowing firms turned platforms. Think: products that save time, not monetize it.

A few deals we’re excited about are still under wraps—but let’s just say our demo day startups are getting attention, and we’re already fielding calls from follow-on investors. (Ping me if you want early access.)

✍️ Point Solutions, Second-Order Effects, and the Ad-Free Future

Right now, accounting tech is full of point solutions. Expense workflows here. AP automation there. A dashboard for every niche.

But what happens after that? That’s the question we have been asking ourselves.

We’ve been thinking about the second-order effects of this fragmentation. What if today’s tools evolve—not into bigger dashboards—but into something foundational? A new financial layer. An invisible ops layer. A decentralized control panel for every firm.

Inspired by Chris Dixon’s thoughts from a16z’s LP Summit, we’re asking: What’s the equivalent in accounting? What’s the layer, not just the app?

And if we’re honest: what would this look like if we weren’t stuck in the business of time and engagement?

But what if accounting tech didn’t follow that model? What if success meant you never had to log in? What if we optimized for disengagement, not DAU?

That’s a wild—and very real—design challenge we want to support into existence.

💼 Shoutouts + Community Update

✨ Startup Spotlight & Quotes That Inspired Community Ideas

Ashok Manthena, Chief Innovator at ChatFin, joined us for a recent Tech Talk and dropped some gems:

"Finance has a data problem."

"AI is conversation, not command."

That last one stuck with us. Because the best accounting AI tools won’t just execute—they’ll collaborate. The future isn’t task automation. It’s agentic AI: software that perceives, reasons, acts, and learns.

Add in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and you’ve got tools that don’t hallucinate—they cite sources. Which, in a world of audits and GL integrity, is kind of important.

“Community doesn’t happen in connection; it shapes in design.” — shared by a non-technical founder psychedelic enthusiast Jacob Tell, District 216.

We’re leaning into this as we build our founder and LP community. Demo Day wasn’t just a moment—it was a structure. And we’re investing in the container as much as the content. Stay tuned.

📊 Stat of the Month

Did you know 🧐 93% of CPA firms in the U.S. have fewer than 10 staff. And they generate $135B in revenue. 🤯

Small firms = big TAM. But they’re not looking for platforms. They want tools that just work—on top of QBO and a feral Google Sheet.

📺 Follow us on YouTube for more Tech Talks 📬 And subscribe on Substack if you haven’t already

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