Finance teams may spend years yearning for a world without endless Excel sheets, but the reality remains unchanged for most.
Even with sophisticated systems for enterprise resource planning or customer management, Excel is still the fallback tool of choice for companies patching together transaction records or preparing for a financial audit.
Yet two former Microsoft veterans, Ramnandan Krishnamurthy and Ajay Krishna Amudan, sense it is time for something new. They have launched Maximor, an AI-focused startup that wants to swap those old spreadsheets for smart automation and lifted the curtain with a hefty $9 million seed investment led by Foundation Capital.
Maximor builds an AI system that speaks directly to a customer’s ERP, billing, and CRM platforms, pulling data seamlessly and synthesizing information for real-time insights. Instead of waiting for the month to end and scrambling to make the numbers match, teams get an immediate look at their operation and financial health.
Automation Steps In
One client, property tech company Rently, used to spend eight days every month scrambling to close the books. With Maximor, the team finished in only four and wound up shifting half their attention to strategic projects, says Rently CFO Dustin Neel.
Unlike many upstarts that try to bury old habits, Maximor makes peace with the spreadsheet, letting teams export reconciled data for those who favor Excel’s familiar interface before passing numbers to the auditors.
Krishnamurthy describes Maximor’s agents as directly linking into common ERP tools like NetSuite, accounting platforms such as QuickBooks, and even payroll or other business software. The agents create documentation, add reviewer comments, and build audit trails from day one.
Despite the promise of AI, Krishnamurthy says the company keeps a human touch. “Agents act as preparers and people act as reviewers,” he explains, calling it a model reminiscent of traditional finance teams where routine work is handled by junior members and more senior staff focus on oversight.
The company debuted in the summer of 2024, with roots tracing back to Krishnamurthy’s years at Microsoft, where he managed finance transformations for Fortune 500 firms such as Coca-Cola. Both co-founders developed their teamwork as students in Chennai at IIT Madras.
Maximor’s approach has already caught the attention of heavyweight financial leaders and investors. Backers of the seed round include Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, as well as the chief executives from Zuora. Institutional support from Gaia Ventures and Boldcap rounds out the roster.
Operating out of both New York and Bengaluru, Maximor has a global team of 18 and is actively hiring. Their sights are set on companies with revenues of at least $50 million and their software caters to businesses in the United States, China, India, and beyond.
With support for both major accounting standards, Maximor is gearing up to serve the world’s largest and most complex organizations.
