$35M Series - A round for Campfire

John Glasgow, the CEO of Campfire, is among a few notable founders in the CFO Office Software Space who have spent time in the 'trenches' and led Finance functions and worked building/growing Fintech companies that catered to CFO’s.

In Glasgow’s case, he worked at Adobe in their Finance Team before advancing to Invoice2Go and then later at Bill as a senior executive. Now he is the Founder and CEO at Campfire. We at the CFO Office are always excited to see innovation in the space, and Campfire is one of those innovative companies that is building AI-first solutions to accelerate “Digital Tooling” in the CFO’s office.

We are highlighting Campfire because they announced $35M in Series A funding from Accel with participation from Y Combinator, Foundation Capital, and Capital 49. That is a solid list of backers. Importantly, it is great to see top VC firms jumping in to make investments in the CFO Office space. We have already seen that in the very recent past with investments in companies such as Niural ($31M Series A round led by Marathon) and Rillet ($25M Series A round led by Sequoia). So yes, top-tier VCs are putting their cash to work in the CFO’s Office, seeking out AI-first companies that are pushing the envelope on innovation.

Campfire positions itself as an "AI-first ERP for next-gen Finance". In our view, that is a great aspiration, but we know that we are :

a) In the very early innings of AI

b) ERP for all practical purposes is a broad application stack with several modules, and that space is currently cornered by the likes of Oracle, Workday, NetSuite, SAP, and others.

That said, Campfire is making its advances by focusing deeply on a few select pieces of the ERP suite, like a faster and more efficient close, deeper financial insights, and the ability for customers to avail a system that is easily adaptable when they are small but one that can scale as they grow larger.

What is exciting about Campfire is that it is built from the ground up to leverage the latest advancements in AI and modern cloud architecture. Its key innovation is “Ember,” a conversational AI assistant (powered by Anthropic) that allows finance teams to query data using natural language. Campfire is well-positioned to throw its weight against the likes of established incumbents like QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct, and even NetSuite.  

For now, Campfire primarily targets mid-market companies that are looking to move away from legacy systems or emerging companies looking to deploy their first core accounting and finance solution. By and large, Campfire is designed for companies experiencing growth and needing scalable financial systems without the complexity and cost of traditional enterprise solutions.

This is an exciting development in the CFO Office space. Just in the past week, we have seen a lot of deal movement. Xero announced its intention to acquire Melio and Niural, and now Campfire has raised priced rounds from top-tier VCs. This is going to be a busy and productive year for all stakeholders in the space.