Abacus, a company developing agentic CPA assistants for modern accounting firms, today announced it has raised $6.6 million in seed funding. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, with significant participation from Pear VC, and additional involvement from Recall Capital and Original Capital.
Founded by brothers Cody Sugarman (CEO) and Brandon Sugarman (CTO), both Stanford engineers, Abacus brings an AI-first approach to modernizing how accounting firms operate.
As accounting firms face increasing pressure from shrinking headcount and growing client demands, Abacus helps teams maintain efficiency by eliminating repetitive manual work while preserving the precision and control essential for tax firms.
Abacus is strategically starting where its impact can be highest: automating data entry, which is the most expensive and time-consuming task in the tax preparation process. Currently, tax associates spend up to 80% of their time on manual, repetitive tasks like data collection, reconciliation, and preparing workpapers before a CPA even reviews the return.
With fewer new professionals entering the field and increased pressure on delivery timelines, many firms resort to offshore teams, incurring costs of $30 or more per return and facing long turnaround times during peak season.
How the funding will be used: This funding will advance Abacus’ mission to help CPAs get things done faster, transforming junior-level preparers into reviewers and bringing Big Four-level automation and efficiency to the entire CPA market. And their intelligent assistants learn firm-specific workflows and handle the rote, high-volume tasks that typically slow teams down.
KEY QUOTES:
“With fewer professionals entering the field and workloads rising, the accounting industry is under immense pressure. We’re seeing an explosion of BPO usage, but associates are still working 60+ hour weeks during the busy seasons to meet the April and October deadlines. We’re building software that doesn’t just automate tasks-it works alongside teams, adapts to how they operate, and scales with their complexity. This funding allows us to expand our platform and bring this new category of assistant to more firms across the industry.”
Cody Sugarman
“The idea for Abacus came from our own CPA issuing us a ‘7216 consent form’, essentially telling us that the bulk of our tax prep work was going to be offshored. This sparked a curiosity in the industry and eventually led to our first paying customer.”
Brandon Sugarman
