Cranston AI

We are automating the $900B market for back office labor.

The Problem

Accounting is a headache, but processes haven’t changed since the migration to the cloud a decade ago. Accountants still request bank statements over email, reconcile accounts manually, and type tax data line by line. The average accountant spends 70% of their time on repetitive tasks.

It’s a nightmare, and it’s a waste of company time and resources.

Our Story:

For the last 5 years, We have been obsessed with this problem from opposite ends. Sean was the CTO of ReMatter, a vertical ERP for scrap yards. ERPs are notoriously gnarly to build, sell, and implement. But companies using their ERP would have an average of 4 back-office employees doing data entry, reconciliation, AR/AP, and reporting on top of the ERP.

For every $1,000 companies spend on their ERP, they spend $50,000 on labor managing it.

Max spent five years running a profitable accounting firm in the weeds doing exactly that work: reconciling, filing, and cleaning messy accounting data for thousands of companies.

And in a few years, it will all be automated with AI.

While we were working on these separate companies, we met at the same hole-in-the-wall Mexican spot twice a week, arguing about AI models, Ben Thompson essays, and of course, accounting.

Three months ago over a couple plates of tacos, we decided it was time to drop what we were doing, move to San Francisco, and start Cranston, the AI Accounting Company.

Mexican restaurant ——> YC

The Solution:

Our agentic workflows are built from the ground up to think like a human accountant with the context of your business. Accounting is just a system of rules and judgment calls that put the right information in the right place at the right time.

Our system:

• Pulls in your company documents and context to create a relational map of your company data
• Reconciles accounting data from across your company’s systems (Stripe, banking, ERP, invoices, etc.) to give you a real time operating picture of your business
• Automatically detects invoices and uploads journal entries to your ERP (and matching them with transactions from your bank)
• Detects and automates tax obligations

If you’re struggling with late closes, disconnected systems, or finance workflows that rely on too many humans, Cranston gives you a single source of truth for your financial data. Our AI agents tie every number back to its real-world context so you can trust your books, stay compliant, and make faster, smarter decisions.

Traction

In the last 60 days, we’ve acquired our first customers and grown to $21.5K MRR. We have over a dozen customers using our technology to automate their back-office operations and save hundreds of manual hours entering & organizing information in their ERP.

Our Team:

We decided to start this company because we believe the accounting industry is on the cusp of massive disruption.

Max previously ran a bootstrapped accounting firm that served thousands of clients and filed 10k+ tax returns. Former YC COO and debate champion.

Sean did CS & AI at Stanford before dropping out to start ReMatter (Raised $20M+ from Founders Fund and Index Ventures), where he managed a team of 20+. Ex-Databricks and Ironman/Boston Marathon finisher.

We’ve been best friends for 5 years, and now we’re building the future of accounting together.

Asks:

• Customer Connections: If you know a startup or SMB that’s drowning in back-office work, please refer them to us.
• Connections to engineering talent: We need high-quality, dedicated engineers who understand business problems to help us build out our platform
• Feedback on our vision: We are trying to build the future of accounting. If you are opinionated on this, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact us at founders@cranstonai.com