Candis GmbH, a German startup working to automate companies’ manual accounting workflows, today announced that it has raised 12 million euros (about $14 million) in a funding round led by Viola Ventures and Rabo Frontier Ventures.

Several existing backers including Lightspeed Venture Partners chipped in as well.

Candis provides a cloud-based accounting platform that uses machine learning to reduce the amount of time needed to organize a company’s financial records. One of the main use cases for the platform is automating payment reconciliation. That’s the process wherein the accounting department compares a company’s various transaction logs with one another to ensure that all the sums match.

Candis imports transaction logs from a company’s financial systems and automatically matches each record to the associated invoice. It can, for example, match a payment to a supplier for a piece of industrial equipment with the invoice that the supplier sent over after delivering the hardware. If a document is missing, the startup’s platform generates an alert for the accounting department.

Candis also provides other features including a dashboard for centrally viewing financial records. It’s paired with an approval engine, which companies can use to require that specific employees to sign off on invoices before they’re paid. 

The startup claims its platform’s features are together capable of automating about 80% of “classic accounting processes” involved in managing an organization’s books. The message appears to have resonated in the market: Candis disclosed today that its revenues have increased more than fivefold since its last funding round in late 2018, though it didn’t provide absolute numbers. Candis and its investors are betting there’s still a big addressable market left to capture. 

“Our machine-learning based technology disrupts a whole industry, in which the majority of tasks are still very manual,” said Candis co-founder Christian Ritosek (pictured, right, with co-founder Christopher Becker). “The pattern recognition engine automates accounting workflows and empowers companies with real-time data and insights to make better financial decisions.”

The startup plans to use the funding to enhance its platform’s machine learning features and finance expansion initiatives. There are a number of venture-backed contenders in the budding accounting automation segment including Boston-based Botkeeper Inc., which closed a $25 million funding round of its own last month. 

Photo: Candis