Finance executives everywhere know all about the pain, expense, and time that can come from the manual accounting process of reconciliation.
Now a new Seattle startup wants to help with some automation and the support of several big-name investors.
Sigma IQ today came out of stealth mode and announced a $3.5 million seed investment round led by Vulcan Capital, with participation from Keeler Investments Group, Family Angel Management Fund, Falcon Partners, Clear Fir Partners, and several leading fintech angel investors. Barton Ventures, the investment vehicle of Zillow and Expedia co-founder Rich Barton, also invested.
Sigma IQ is a spinout of Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs, which also invested in the round from its VC arm, PSL Ventures.
The company has developed software that can automate the financial account reconciliations process required by all companies to ensure that their financial record keeping is accurate.
Glenn Wisegarver, founder and CEO of Sigma IQ, knows all about reconciliations. The former U.S. Air Force captain was CFO at companies such as Moz and Zetec, and has more than two decades of finance expertise under his belt.
“I intimately know these problems,” he told GeekWire. “I’ve been on a mission throughout that entire time of how can we do this better, faster, and with less effort.”
Sigma IQ uses AI and machine learning to accurately compare high-volume transactions at a speed much higher than any manual process. Its software can be up and running within one day.
“It’s not just bank transactions, but credit card, inventory, tax, billing, payroll and a myriad of other situations that require reconciliation,” Wisegarver said. “Our account reconciliation software automates the effort so people can focus their time on much higher-value efforts.”
The company has enterprise customers in beta that span across multiple industries with varying reconciliation challenges. There are four total employees, including Wisegarver and CTO Robert McDaniel, who has experience at Microsoft, PayScale, LiveStories, Rakuten, and his own startup, Lingistic.
“What sets Sigma IQ apart is its team and technology,” YB Choi of Vulcan Capital said in a statement. “They have significant functional and technical depth in this problem space and have developed a highly differentiated solution with immediate demonstrable value.”
Pioneer Square Labs launched in 2015, using the concept of rapidly testing and validating new ideas before recruiting an executive team to build out a spinoff company. The firm last year expanded, raising a $80 million venture fund for PSL Ventures, a separate entity from PSL Studio.
Recent PSL spinouts include NextStep Interactive, Gradient, Shujinko, Gemma Labs, and Remarkably. PSL Managing Director Geoff Entress told GeekWire that PSL will spin out six to eight companies this year, with the Ventures fund participating in their financings. The Ventures arm will make five or six new investments in companies not associated with the Studio, Entress said.
