Earlybird AI targets SME accounting

Its founder says small businesses need finance teams without adding headcount.

Earlybird AI Pte. Ltd. is using artificial intelligence (AI) agents to automate accounting for small businesses, turning bank and point-of-sale (POS) data into financial statements within minutes.

“What we provide them is full-service accounting and full-service financial operations,” founder and CEO Bhavana Ravindran told Singapore Business Review. “You can think of us as an AI-native service where 90% or more of our solutions are technology-powered.”

Founded in 2024, the Singapore-based startup provides finance operations for commerce-led businesses. Its AI agents handle tasks such as reconciliation and monthly financial closing, reducing reconciliation time by more than 90% and shortening monthly close cycles by as much as 80%.

Ravindran said the idea emerged after nearly a decade at Visa, Inc., where she worked with banks and financial institutions on digital payments and saw that many small and medium enterprises lacked modern finance tools.

"We take data from banks, from POS machines and embed accounting very seamlessly at that last mile, which makes it very user-friendly for SMEs," she said via Zoom.

The company focuses on direct-to-consumer brands with multichannel sales and high transaction volumes that often lack the staff to support growing finance operations.

Earlybird AI combines its software with an in-house team of certified public accountants and chartered accountants to review and support client accounts.

The startup has raised about $1.1m and is prioritising revenue growth over raising more capital.

"At this stage, we are quite heavily focused on customers and growing our revenue,” Ravindran said. ‘But I think we will soon reach a stage where we want to expand and grow faster.”

She said the company is targeting Dubai and the UK for its next phase of expansion.

Earlybird AI is also adding features that let users interact directly with financial ledgers through AI assistant Claude and is introducing bank-to-ledger agents that automatically convert bank statements into accounting ledgers and profit-and-loss statements.

"You can think of it as going from a bank statement to your accounting ledger and your profit and loss in a matter of minutes," Ravindran said.