Nominal, a NYC-based company providing generative AI to bridge the gap between ERP systems and the financial management needs of modern mid-market, multi-entity businesses, raised $9.2M in Seed funding. In conjunction with the funding, Nominal CEO Guy Leibovitz replied to our questions about the company, the funding, their achievements, and future plans.
FinSMEs: Hi Guy, can you tell us a bit more about yourself? What’s your background?
I’m one of the co-founders of Nominal, along with Golan Kopichinsky. My journey into the tech industry has been shaped by a passion for leveraging technology to solve real-world problems.
Before Nominal, Golan and I founded Cognigo, a data security company focused on AI and data automations, which was acquired by NetApp in 2019.
Our expertise lies in AI, data engineering, and building scalable solutions that address critical market needs. Generative AI will create new market leaders across many sectors, and we’re excited to bring automation to tackle a problem we’ve encountered personally, both at our startup as well as at a Fortune 500 company.
FinSMEs: Let’s speak about Nominal. What is the market problem you want to solve? What is the real opportunity?
The mid-market ERP landscape is currently dominated by companies that, 25 years ago, introduced the first cloud-based ledgers. However, like all products, their underlying software has an expiration date. Nowadays, these systems require expensive customizations and extensive manual work, and many ERP implementations are underachieving. This problem is especially prevalent in mid-market, multi-entity businesses dealing with multiple ledgers, currencies, and regulations.
The ERP market has evolved from mainframes to client-server and then to the cloud. We see a significant opportunity to create the next generation of ERPs by using generative AI to bridge the gap between existing systems and the needs of modern businesses. This approach allows companies to keep their current ledgers while enjoying the benefits of this new breed of AI-powered solutions.
FinSMEs: What are the features differentiating the product from competitors?
Nominal’s AI-powered platform differentiates itself in several key ways. First, our shadow ledger extends existing ERPs and general ledgers without requiring migration, minimizing risk and disruption to current operations. Second, our generative subledgers transform various data inputs and business logic into automated workflows, streamlining processes such as multi-entity consolidation and management, lease accounting, and revenue recognition. Third, our platform offers custom workflows, allowing businesses to tailor their financial operations to their specific needs. Lastly, our period-end collaboration tool and advanced reporting capabilities enable finance teams to focus on strategic growth rather than manual tasks.
FinSMEs: You just raised a new funding round. Please, tell us more about it.
We’re excited to announce that we’ve raised $9.2 million in seed funding led by Bling Capital and Hyperwise Ventures, with participation from Vela Partners, Incubate Fund, and executives from notable companies such as Bill.com, Salesforce, Justworks and ServiceNow. This funding will allow us to accelerate our product offering, expand our market reach, and increase our sales and support resources.
FinSMEs: Can you share some numbers and achievements for the business?
Absolutely. While still an early-stage startup, we’ve seen very promising traction. Nominal is already deployed across hundreds of entities, managing over $1 billion in book value. We’ve seen significant impact and efficiency gains for our clients. For example, a mid-sized energy company saves more than 20 hours per week by replacing manual work with our automation. And this is only the beginning.
FinSMEs: What are your medium-term plans?
We plan to continue enhancing our product offering, incorporating more advanced AI capabilities and expanding our integrations with popular financial tools. We’ll also focus on supporting additional workflows that are critical for saving time and increasing efficiency in financial management processes. We also aim to broaden our market reach within the mid-market segment, targeting a wider range of industries and business types that can benefit from AI automation.
FinSMEs
27/03/2024