Ex-Microsoft Duo Launch Maximor to Dethrone Excel with AI-Powered Financial Revolution

Despite significant investments in financial software, many corporate finance teams continue to rely heavily on Excel spreadsheets for tasks such as closing books, reconciling data, and preparing audit materials. Recognizing this dependency as an issue that requires innovation, two former Microsoft executives have embarked on a journey to revolutionize this paradigm. They have co-founded Maximor, a company aimed at replacing these traditional spreadsheets with advanced AI agents to handle foundational financial tasks.

Excel remains a ubiquitous tool in the financial domain. Even with the implementation of specialized enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and billing systems, many mid-sized companies and large conglomerates prefer exporting transactional data to Excel for manual reconciliation. Finance teams frequently treat spreadsheets as makeshift databases, and there's an evident reliance on functions like VLOOKUP to align data across different files.

Maximor has recently stepped out of its stealth mode, marking the occasion with a successful seed funding round, securing $9 million led by Foundation Capital. The company's strategic vision involves deploying a network of AI agents that directly integrate with ERP, CRM, and billing systems to streamline and automate the extraction and reconciliation of transactional data.

Co-founder and CEO Ramnandan Krishnamurthy emphasized, in an interview, the platform's capability to unify operational and financial data, offering real-time financial insights without the end-of-month scramble. As an example, Maximor has helped Rently, an early adopter in the real estate tech space, cut its month-end closing process from eight to just four days, without additional hires.

Maximor's AI agents are designed to integrate with various systems, including NetSuite, Intacct, QuickBooks, Zoho Books, and other SaaS platforms. Post integration, these agents autonomously generate working papers, audit explanations, and trace records, thereby simplifying the audit process. While reducing reliance on Excel is a core goal, the platform still accommodates data export in spreadsheet format, catering to auditors and finance professionals who prefer this layout.

Krishnamurthy highlighted the platform’s interoperability with Excel, allowing users to present results in Maximor’s UI or export them as spreadsheets. This feature aligns well with the traditional processes finance teams adhere to, ensuring a seamless transition.

Beyond AI agents, Maximor offers human accountant services, providing an extra layer of human oversight when required. Although this may seem contrary to its automation-first ethos, it serves as a clever safety net, ensuring accuracy and reliability in financial data handling.

Krishnamurthy and his partner, CTO Ajay Krishna Amudan, both bring extensive backgrounds from Microsoft, leveraging their experiences in financial solutions within major corporate settings. Their collective expertise has attracted the interest and investment of notable figures from the financial and tech industries.

Operating out of New York with an office in Bangalore, Maximor is poised for growth, targeting companies with revenues exceeding $50 million. With early adopters across the United States, China, and India, the company is committed to expanding its workforce in these regions. Its software's dual support for GAAP and IFRS further positions Maximor as a compelling solution for multinational enterprises.