Zalos raises USD $3.6 million for finance AI agents

Zalos has raised USD $3.6 million in seed funding to develop AI agents for finance operations. The round was led by 14 Peaks, with participation from Cohen Circle, 20VC and angel investors.

The San Francisco startup is building software that logs into finance systems and carries out routine processes through the same interfaces used by staff. It is aimed at finance teams that still rely on people to move data between enterprise resource planning systems, spreadsheets, email and banking platforms because many of those systems remain poorly connected.

Its software converts screen recordings of finance workflows into agents that can navigate screens, enter data and check controls across systems including NetSuite, Sage and SAP S/4HANA. Those agents can handle tasks such as billing automation across multiple systems, month-end reconciliations and reporting across several ERP instances.

The pitch reflects a broader shift in artificial intelligence from text generation towards software that can take action inside existing applications. While larger AI groups including OpenAI and Anthropic are working on more general computer-use tools, Zalos is targeting the narrower, more tightly regulated corporate finance market.

That focus matters because finance teams typically work inside systems that companies have spent years installing and adapting. Replacing them can be expensive, slow and risky, leaving many businesses with a patchwork of software that still depends on manual work to complete essential processes.

William Fairbairn, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Zalos, said that gap in system connectivity was central to the company's rationale. "Finance teams have the systems, but they are still doing the work manually because the stack is not connected," he said. "We built Zalos on the belief that CFOs should not need to rip out their existing stack to adopt the latest in AI. We want to start by sitting on top of what is already there. Computer agents that can log in and run the workflow end to end are the fastest path to real transformation in finance operations."

Founders' case

Zalos was founded by Fairbairn and Hung Hoang. Fairbairn previously worked at cash management software group Agicap, where he said conversations with finance leaders repeatedly highlighted the burden of long ERP deployments and the limited benefits many companies feel they get from them. Hoang spent five years at Apple Pay before turning to computer-use agents as a way around missing or incomplete application programming interfaces.

The company began building its product after joining Y Combinator. Its approach trains agents on recorded workflows so they can repeat those tasks inside existing tools without extensive integrations.

Hoang set out the case for that model in enterprise finance. "The opportunity Zalos is addressing reflects a structural reality in enterprise finance. Legacy ERPs' speed of innovation has stalled, leading to growing manual work in place of transformative automation. AI-native ERPs may offer a credible alternative for companies that have not yet committed to a system. But for the majority of midmarket and enterprise finance teams, replacing an embedded ERP is not an attractive option; years of processes have been built around it, and too many painful system implementations remain fresh in memory."

"The rise of reliable computer agents creates a third path: automation that sits on top of the existing stack and operates it as a human would. These agents are trained once with screen recordings, then the process is automated indefinitely, without breaks, and at a speed and consistency a person cannot match."

Investor view

Investors backing the round framed the opportunity as rooted in the complexity of finance software rather than in replacing it. The sector has long attracted automation vendors, but many have struggled when customers encounter bespoke workflows, incomplete integrations and strict audit requirements.

Emanuele Larocca, Principal at 14 Peaks, said the company's method addresses those constraints directly. "Finance operations is one of the last areas where the complexity and embeddedness of the underlying systems have made it genuinely hard for CFOs to unlock the ROI promised by AI. What Zalos has built sidesteps that problem entirely. By operating the systems as a human would and training agents with screen recordings, they deliver the true power of finance transformation without losing any domain expertise or asking CFOs to rip out systems they have spent years configuring."

Nate Pontician, vice president at Cohen Circle, added: "Zalos is redefining what software means for CFOs. Zalos' computer agents don't just assist; they log in, navigate systems and complete workflows end to end. They're giving finance professionals back hours lost to repetitive tasks so they can focus on what actually moves the business forward. It's not a copilot; it's a colleague."

Every action taken by its agents is captured in an auditable log. The platform also includes SOC 2 Part II certification, enterprise single sign-on, role-based access controls and on-premise deployment options, reflecting the scrutiny finance and compliance teams place on any software touching core records and reporting processes.

The funding gives Zalos fresh backing as it pushes into a crowded AI market with a specialised product for one of the more process-heavy functions inside large organisations. Its proposition rests on the view that, for many finance departments, the next wave of automation will come not from replacing old systems but from software that can use them as employees do.