Ambrook Secures $29M Funding, Accelerating Mission to Empower Family-Run Businesses

This week, we saw yet another software company that is part of the CFO Office ecosystem get endorsed by top VCs and come out with a solid Series-A fund raise. We are talking about Ambrook.

Ambrook is the innovative accounting software tailored for America's family-run businesses, today announced it has secured a total of $29 million in new funding, spearheaded by a $26.1 million Series A round. This significant investment, led by Thrive Capital and Dylan Field at Field Ventures (Figma's co-founder), with continued support from existing investor Homebrew Capital, and participation from Designer Fund, BoxGroup, Mischief, Not Boring, and others, underscores a growing belief in Ambrook's unique approach to empowering the "real economy." 

Since its founding in 2020, Ambrook has set out to address a critical gap in the market: providing sophisticated yet easy-to-use financial tools for sectors often overlooked by generic software, particularly agriculture and construction.  The premise here is that farms and similar businesses navigate a unique & complex financial landscape ranging from multiple revenue lines and vertical integration to biological factors like livestock lifecycle, that traditional accounting solutions simply aren't built to handle.

Key features of Ambrook’s software suite:

1. Comprehensive Bookkeeping:

·       Smart Tagging: Intuitive system for tagging transactions, bills, and invoices.

·       Bank Feed Sync: Connects to over 10,000 financial institutions for automatic transaction import.

·       Custom Chart of Accounts: Allows businesses to set up income and expense categories tailored to their specific operations.

·       IRS Schedule F & C Integration: A major differentiator for agricultural businesses, it automatically aligns categories with IRS Schedule F (Farm) and Schedule C (Business) boxes, simplifying tax preparation.

·       Receipt & Document Management: Upload and scan receipts from mobile or desktop, with AI scanning to digitize and categorize information.

·       AI Matching: Provides AI-powered suggestions for matching invoices, bills, payments, and checks.

·       Cash On Hand Tracking: Manages offline cash accounts, useful for multiple market booths or petty cash.

·       Internal Transfers: Helps reallocate expenses for accurate profitability tracking per business line.

·       Review Mode: A personalized to-do list for categorizing and reconciling transactions.

2. Core Accounting & Reporting:

·       Journal Entries: Manages cash and accrual journals.

·       Real-time Financial Statements: Generates live Profit & Loss (P&L) and Balance Sheet reports.

·       Margins & Ratios: Tracks key financial ratios like gross profit margin.

·       Exportable Reports: Download P&L, Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows, transactions, and AR/AP aging for further analysis.

·       Cash or Accrual Basis: Supports both accounting methods.

3. Invoicing & Bill Pay:

·       Invoice Creator: Professional invoice editor with branded templates and custom logos.

·       Item Catalog & Customer List: Organize products/services and customer contacts.

·       Online Payments: Accept various digital payment methods (ACH, credit cards – standard 3.55% + $0.55 fee for cards) that automatically match invoices.

·       Automated Bill Creation & Payment: Can create bills automatically from emails and pay them via checks mailed by Ambrook or digital transfers.

4. Financial Analytics:

·       Cashflow Management: Visualizes inflows and outflows over time.

·       Enterprise Profitability: Compares different business lines (e.g., specific crops, livestock herds, construction projects) to identify profit and loss centers.

·       Drill-Down Capabilities: Go deeper into income and expense categories by enterprise or entity.

·       Budgets: Set custom budgets and measure them against live data.

·       Working Capital: Helps prevent overspending by tracking current assets minus liabilities.

·       Project Tags/Locations: Measure ROI by specific projects, locations (e.g., fields, parcels), or even per-unit production metrics.

5. Cards & Spend Management:

·       Issue corporate cards with built-in spend controls and security features.

·       Automates expense reporting for card purchases.

6. Funding & Support:

·       Offers Funding Advisors to help discover, qualify for, and apply for grants, loans, and other assistance.

·       Provides US-based customer support (community, email, chat, and live 1:1 training depending on the plan).

·       Full-featured mobile app (iOS and Android).

How this new round of funding could help drive Ambrook’s ambitions:

This latest injection of capital will significantly accelerate Ambrook's mission to make these businesses more profitable, resilient, and independent. The company has outlined several key areas for investment:

1. Deepening Workflows for True Cost of Production: Ambrook plans to enhance its advanced financial workflows, including multi-entity reporting, inventory management, and integrated payroll. These enhancements aim to provide producers with an unparalleled understanding of their true cost of production, enabling better strategic decision-making and reducing reliance on manual spreadsheets.

   
   

2. Thoughtful AI Integration: The funding will support the continued development of Ambrook's AI-native architecture. The company's philosophy is to leverage AI for "the quiet things right" – automating tedious tasks like receipt management, categorization, and anomaly detection. This aligns with the idea of AI democratizing knowledge and empowering middle-class businesses.

   
   

3. Expanding a Local Payments Network: Ambrook is set to expand "Ambrook Pay" nationwide, offering free, instant business-to-business payments with minimal paperwork and automatic reconciliation. This initiative aims to keep more capital circulating within local communities, enhancing cash flow and improving transaction margins for its customers.

   
   

4. Broadening Ecosystem Partnerships: The investment will facilitate deeper integration with various financial and agricultural tools and services that producers already use, ensuring seamless data flow across their operations.

   
   

5. Scaling to Support Tens of Thousands of Businesses: With this new funding, Ambrook aims to grow its reach significantly, supporting not only agriculture but also the broader communities and supply chains that serve these vital industries.

   
   

The investment from Thrive Capital, a firm known for backing innovative technology companies, and Dylan Field, a visionary leader in software, signals strong confidence in Ambrook's technology and its vision for empowering essential American industries. By focusing on industry-specific complexities and offering a user-friendly, AI-powered platform with a unique resource-based pricing model, Ambrook is poised to transform financial management for a crucial segment of the U.S. economy.