Former Microsoft execs launch AI agents to end Excel-led finance

Despite millions spent on financial software, many financial teams still rely on Excel to close their books and reconcile figures while preparing audit. Two former Microsoft managers consider it a problem – and they started Maximor To replace spreadsheets with AI agents for the Gruntwerk financing teams.

Excel spreadsheets are everywhere in finance. Even with special ERP, CRM and billing systems, many medium-sized companies and companies still export transactions to Excel for manual reconciliation. Teams often treat spreadsheets as improvised databases, sometimes even depending on functions such as VlookUp – a function used to bring matching numbers from one table to another – to align figures on files.

Maximor wants to replace the dependence on Excel on Excel with its AI system and originated from Stealth with a $ 9 million seed round led by Foundation Capital.

The startup uses a network of AI agents who connect directly to ERP, CRM and billing systems to continuously attract transactions. That, co-founder and CEO Ramnandan Krishnamurthy (depicted above, right), said in an exclusive interview, helps in uniting operational and financial data and offer real-time financial visibility-in place until the end of the month to find out all.

The approach should help to reduce the time needed before the end of the month, he believes. Maximor says, for example, that Proptech company Rently, one of his early customers, has reduced its closure from eight days to four and avoided two extra accounting employees. Rently was able to divert almost half the time of his team to strategic work after using Maximor’s agent platform, said CFO Dustin Neel of Rently.

The financial agents of Maximor are connected to ERPs such as NetSuite and Intacct, accounting tools such as Quickbooks and ZOHO books, and a series of payroll administration, CRM and other SaaS platforms. Once connected, they generate work cards, review notes and audit paths – to streamline audits.

Although Maximor wants to reduce dependence on Excel, it still enables teams to export coordinated data to spreadsheets – a format that many auditors and financial staff prefer before they send songs to audit.

“We are interoperable with Excel on that part, because our platform does the work and can present it in our own user interface or in Excel Direct,” Krishnamurthy told WAN.

In addition to his AI agents, Maximor offers human accountants as an option for people in the course for his AI work, or as an accounting service for companies without internal financial teams. It is an interesting Failsafe, given that Maximor dedicates itself as an AI startup that automates this work. Trusting people may seem at odds with that promise.

Krishnamurthy, however, told WAN that the software is self-sufficient, where agents use end-to-end work independently. The agents act as preparers and people as reviewers, he said, adding that it works like traditional accounting units, where Junior employees handle routine tasks and managers focus on supervision.

Krishnamurthy was co-founder of Maximor in the summer of 2024 after years at Microsoft as the founder of his digital transformation group, where he led financing and data projects for Fortune 500 customers, including Coca-Cola. He collaborated with Ajay Krishna Amudan, now CTO, who previously worked on the internal income systems of Microsoft, in addition to other projects there. The two worked for 14 years, starting as students at IIT-Madras.

The financial experience of the duo at Microsoft helped with the attracting angel investors, including CFOs and financial leaders of Ramp, Gusto, Mongodb, Zuora and the Big Four Accounting Firms, said Krishnamurthy. The seed round also attracted Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, a former Iit-Madras classmate from Krishnamurthy, and Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo, which was introduced by the VCs who supported the round. Institutional investors Gaia Ventures and Boldcap also participated.

Maximor, with headquarters in New York with an office in Bengaluru, has 18 employees almost evenly divided between the US and India and actively takes on both locations. The startup focuses on companies with at least $ 50 million in income and already has early customers in the US, China and India. In addition, Maximor’s software supports both GAAP and IFRS standards, which appoints companies with a global footprint.