RALEIGH – Finmark,  which sells financial modeling software for startups, has raised $5 million in seed funding from 14 venture funds and more than 30 angel investors.

This oversubscribed coalition of investors and entrepreneurs included lead investor IdeaFund Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Draper Associates. Rami Essaid, cofounder and CEO of Finmark, told WRAL TechWire many of the venture firms and entrepreneur investors are using the company’s software.

While financing is the top priority for founders of early-stage startups, many don’t have the time nor resources to dedicate to building and tracking a high-quality, accurate financial model. Finmark provides an easy-to-use platform that takes complex financial concepts and calculations and distills them so startups can easily update, inspect, and share their financial metrics. Finmark’s software creates custom-tailored models for each business, to allow businesses to track and measure runway, hiring, fundraising and more.

The customized software eliminates the need for outsourced financial resources or inaccurate templates, and integrates with the leading accounting, payroll and payment software, including Quickbook, Xero, Stripe, Zuora, Gusto and ADP, alongside personal bank accounts, so founders can have a direct view into their financials from day one.

Why it’s needed

“Most first-time entrepreneurs have never had to manage $500,000 or a million dollars before,” Essaid said.

“As a now three-time startup founder, I’ve seen firsthand how complex and time-consuming financial modeling and planning can be. After experiencing several problems at my last company, Distil Networks, due to a poor financial model, I knew there must be an easier way.”

Virginia-based Distil offers web security services and sold to cybersecurity firm Imperva in 2019. On the company web site blog, Essaid wrote:

“It was several years ago. I was in the middle of my wild ride taking Distil through the company building journey from unknown startup to acquisition by Imperva. Along the way, we were growing rapidly and our finances were becoming ever more complicated. I remember asking myself questions like:

  • Why does it take the CFO so long to get me the financials?
  • Why is the financial modeling wrong?
  • Why do we have such a hard time collaborating on it?
  • Why can’t I easily share it with my investors?

At Distil I tried to fix these issues so many times that I can remember thinking that I should start a company to solve this problem.”

So, he said, “Thus the idea of Finmark was born. Our investors understand this pain and have bought into Finmark not only as an investment but as a tool for themselves and their portfolios to use.”

“Accurate financial modeling is critical for startup survival and success,” said Mary D’Onofrio, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners in a statement.  “Finmark gives founders peace of mind that their financials are accurate and keeps investors informed with reporting, providing founders with the confidence to spend their time on what they do best: growing their businesses.”

Finmark, only five months old, has 22 employees.

It uses its own software to model its future, is hiring. Essaid said 80 percent of its budget is going toward further engineering and research and development. “We have a lot of features we want to develop.”