Black Ore Exits Stealth with $60 Million Seed Funding for Tax Automation

Israeli-American AI startup, Black Ore, exited from stealth with a $60 million seed funding round led by a16z and Oak HC/FT with participation from General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Trust Ventures, LionBird, SciFi VC, and SV Angel. Notable individual investors include Vikram Pandit, Tom Glocer, Max Levchin, Jason Gardner, Mark Britto, and Gokul Rajaram.

The startup plans to use the capital to expand its team, onboard new customers, and speed up the development of new AI products for financial services.

Black Ore's flagship product is Tax Autopilot, leveraging AI to streamline the tax preparation and review process for CPAs and accounting firms. It automates the integration of federal and state tax codes and regulations.

“We're building a platform by leveraging AI that streamlines an end to end of all of the core workflow of the back office space,” CEO and co-founder, Eyal Shinar shared in an interview on Bloomberg Technology yesterday. The platform aims to bring a holistic solution to a sector that is fraught with inefficiencies and outdated procedures.

“There are capacity issues for CPA firms where there are higher complexities of the tax code, with 238 million tax returns done annually in the US.”

Tax Autopilot allows for quick processing of individual tax returns, reducing the time spent on data entry and enabling CPAs to concentrate on client relationships and advisory services. The platform is SOC-2 compliant and uses a secure portal for document and data uploads.

The impetus behind Black Ore is not just operational efficiency but also to counteract the talent shortage plaguing the industry. “We are automating all of the pieces that could be automated by a machine and right now are struggling to find the right talent for the capacity constraint,” added Shinar.

At the core of Black Ore's competitive advantage is its unique technology stack, combining proprietary and 3rd party models in machine learning, automation, computer vision. Shinar revealed Large Language Models account for 10% of their combined arsenal.

Black Ore aims to solve labor and efficiency issues in financial services by automating routine tasks, thus allowing professionals to focus on strategic and value-adding activities. Their technology enhances productivity, driving revenue growth and profitability for businesses in the industry.

Shinar stated that Black Ore has been collaborating with tax and accounting firms to create technology that addresses resource constraints and enhances client services.

Black Ore was co-founded by Eyal Shinar and CTO Pavel Kapovski, who have backgrounds in building fintech solutions with AI. The team comprises experts from Adobe, Baker Tilly, Cisco, EY, Google, Goldman Sachs, Grant Thornton, NASA, PWC, and Ramp. Future products of the startup will extend to wealth management, financial advisory, and insurance services.