Silverfin raises $4.5m to build real time hub for businesses’ financial data

Silverfin, the real-time connected accounting platform that unifies businesses’ financial data, reporting and communication, has raised $4.5m in a Series A round led by Index Ventures, with participation from existing investors. Silverfin will use the investment to accelerate product development, expand the team at its headquarters in Belgium, and begin to build its international presence, starting in the UK.  

Founded in 2013 and based in Ghent, Belgium, Silverfin addresses a widespread frustration faced by finance departments and accountancy firms whatever their size – namely, their reliance on myriad legacy financial software tools, applications and countless Excel spreadsheets. This leaves organisations without real-time visibility of their financial data, leading to poor communication internally and with third parties.

With over 64,000 businesses already managing their finances on Silverfin, either directly or via their accountancy firm, the company helps its clients become more efficient and less error-prone by switching from fragmented data sources and email, to an integrated software solution. Among the first to benefit from Silverfin have been clients of Deloitte, the industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory firm.

“With real-time precision data at their fingertips, Silverfin not only enables full-picture better-informed decision-making, but also empowers finance teams to shift focus from day-to-day operations to a far more proactive role as strategic advisors to the business,” says Silverfin co-founder Joris Van Der Gucht. “Ultimately we’re building a central nervous system for financial advisory and services firms, paving the way for us to become the first real-time monitor of businesses’ financial data.”  

Silverfin seamlessly integrates with any of the known accounting or financial software systems to streamline a company’s workflow. “Importing and exporting data between accounting software and Excel and Word creates unnecessary friction and leaves room for human error,” says Tim Vandecasteele, Silverfin’s co-founder. “Silverfin links with all data sources to eliminate those mistakes. When something changes at source, that altered information simultaneously updates across every report and budget. This means, for example, that an accountancy firm has an overview of every client’s file at any given moment, enabling it to deliver accurate, timely reporting and advice on an ongoing basis, instead of the traditional quarterly updates,” he adds.

“Fully automating data collection and reconciliation has been described as ‘the holy grail’ of accounting, because it will transform the financial advisory, accounting and auditing sectors,” says Jan Hammer, partner at Index Ventures.  “With Silverfin’s ability to integrate with existing software and provide a central data reconciliation platform, Tim, Joris and the team have a huge opportunity to become the gold standard solution for connected accounting.”