Ian Crosby is betting that artificial intelligence can do more than help bookkeepers—it can eventually replace them.
The former Bench Accounting co-founder has raised a US$10 million seed round for his new startup, Synthetic, a company building what it describes as a fully autonomous bookkeeping service for software startups. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Basis Set Ventures and a group of operator-investors that includes Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, Opendoor CEO and former Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian, and several executives from Brex and Figure.
Synthetic's ambition is straightforward but challenging: connect to a startup's financial systems, understand what's happening inside the business, ask clarifying questions when needed, and produce accrual-basis books without relying on human bookkeepers or accountants.
The company plans to focus exclusively on software, SaaS, and AI businesses, with pricing starting at US$49 per month.
For Crosby, the idea builds on lessons learned during more than a decade at Bench, the Vancouver-founded bookkeeping company he co-founded in 2012 and grew into one of North America's largest bookkeeping services for small businesses. More recently, Crosby founded Teal, which was acquired by Mercury in 2024.
While many AI startups are focused on helping professionals work more efficiently, Crosby says Synthetic is pursuing a more ambitious goal.
"No one has actually ever done this—completely removed the humans," Crosby told Vancouver Tech Journal in an interview. "It's kind of, you know, there's lots of people that are building tools to make humans more efficient. But complete autonomy—building Waymo for accounting—is a lot different than building drive assist for accounting."
The company's launch comes amid growing excitement about AI's ability to automate knowledge work, though Crosby acknowledges significant technical hurdles remain.
"I'm not sure if it's yet technologically possible to make this work," he said in the company's announcement. "AI is notoriously unreliable, and no one wants to entrust their accounting to a system which might get it wrong."
That uncertainty is part of why Synthetic raised a sizeable seed round. Crosby says the company wants enough runway to pursue a long-term vision without being forced into compromises if the technology takes longer than expected to mature.
"We're betting that even if it's not possible today, I don't believe that in three years it's still not going to be possible," he said.
The startup is headquartered in San Francisco, where Crosby now lives and works, though he still spends significant time in Vancouver. Synthetic is currently working with early design partners as it develops the product.
The company's ambitions extend beyond bookkeeping. In its announcement, Synthetic described accounting as merely a starting point toward a broader goal of making it dramatically easier to launch and operate software businesses.
"We want a founder to be able to press a button and watch a real, running company assemble itself around their idea," the company wrote. "We want to make starting a software business as easy as starting a code repo."