Abacum Raises $7M to Revolutionize Finance Teams with Real-Time Data

Abacum Secures $7M Seed Funding to Revolutionize Financial Planning for Mid-Sized Businesses

A new SaaS platform designed to enhance financial planning within mid-market companies, leveraging real-time data and integrated collaboration tools, has successfully raised a significant seed round. Abacum has secured $7 million, led by Creandum, to further develop and expand its offerings.

Investor Confidence in Abacum’s Vision

The investment round saw participation from a diverse group of existing and new investors. These include Y Combinator, PROFounders, and K-Fund, alongside prominent angel investors. Notable names backing Abacum are Justin Kan, co-founder and CEO of Atrium and Twitch; Maximilian Tayenthal, co-founder and co-CEO & CFO of N26; Thomas Lehrman, co-founder and former CEO of GLG; Avi Meir, co-founder and CEO of TravelPerk; Jenny Bloom, CFO of Zapier and former CFO of Mailchimp; and Mike Asher, CFO at Neo4j.

Launch and Early Adoption

Founded during the 2020 global lockdown, Abacum was born from extensive research into the challenges faced by finance teams. The SaaS solution was launched in June 2020. Early adopters include a growing number of scaling companies across the US and Europe, such as Typeform, Cabify, Ebury, Garten, Jeff, and Talkable.

Addressing a Critical Need in Mid-Market Finance

Abacum’s co-founders, Julio Martinez and Jorge Lluch, identified a gap in the market for dedicated financial software tailored to mid-sized organizations. Martinez, a fintech entrepreneur with an investment banking background, and Lluch, a former European Space Agency engineer and CFO/COO, recognized the need for real-time data access and seamless collaboration within finance departments.

Automating Financial Modeling and Enhancing Collaboration

The core function of Abacum is to eliminate the manual processes traditionally associated with financial modeling. The platform automatically updates models with real-time data, integrating directly with key business systems like HR, CRM, and ERP. This empowers finance teams to collaborate more effectively and improve strategic decision-making.

A Multi-faceted Value Proposition

Abacum’s offering to mid-sized companies centers around two key benefits: time savings and accelerated decision-making. The platform streamlines workflows and provides finance professionals with the tools they need to operate more efficiently.

The Impact of Automation on Finance Workflows

“Before implementing Abacum, our clients’ finance analysts routinely dedicated 50% to 70% of their time to manual tasks,” explains Martinez. “These tasks included downloading data from various systems, copying and pasting into spreadsheets prone to errors, and formatting data. Abacum automates this entire process, allowing finance professionals to focus on analysis and value creation.”

He further elaborates, “We facilitate quicker decisions that were previously unattainable. For example, clients previously updated cohort analyses quarterly due to the laborious manual effort involved. With our platform, they can now update these analyses weekly, leading to more informed choices.”

Leveraging Machine Learning for Predictive Insights

Beyond automation, Abacum incorporates machine learning to generate forecasts based on historical data. This provides finance teams with an AI-driven reference point for their assumptions and enhances the accuracy of their projections.

Facilitating Seamless Cross-Departmental Communication

The platform also promotes collaboration by enabling users to easily share information and manage access through defined workflows and permissions. This fosters a more inclusive decision-making process and leverages insights from across the organization.

Focusing on the Underserved Mid-Market

Martinez emphasizes that Abacum specifically targets mid-market finance teams because they often face greater challenges and inefficiencies compared to smaller or larger enterprises. “In this segment, the finance function is often under-resourced, grappling with the complexities of scaling while still being perceived as a support function,” he states.

“Abacum transforms finance into a strategic function, providing the collaborative tools needed to become a trusted business partner. The pandemic has also underscored the importance of effective remote collaboration for finance teams,” he adds.

A Relatively Unexplored Market Opportunity

Martinez also points to the limited adoption of dedicated financial solutions within the mid-market segment, suggesting a significant opportunity for growth.

Competitive Landscape

When discussing competitors, Abacum identifies established players in the market such as Adaptive Insights (founded 2003), Host Analytics (founded 2001), and Anaplan (founded 2008).

Creandum’s Perspective on Abacum’s Potential

Peter Specht, principal at Creandum, commented: “Many companies’ financial planning processes are overdue for modernization and require greater automation. Abacum’s intuitive solution empowers finance teams to collaborate more effectively, operate efficiently, and make better-informed decisions with access to real-time data. We were impressed by their user-friendly product, the caliber of their initial hires, and, crucially, the strong founders and their extensive operational experience – including their firsthand experience as CFOs and entrepreneurs facing these challenges. We are excited to support Abacum’s journey to empower global SMEs to elevate their financial operations.”

Future Plans and Expansion

The seed funding will be allocated to product development and expansion efforts, with a primary focus on attracting finance teams in the US and Europe, according to Martinez.