Press release
- Smacc steps up technology leadership
- Take-over of the machine learning specialist Disdar
- Download: Report on the status of AI applications in financial management offers extensive background information
Potsdam, April 25, 2017 – Smacc GmbH, the provider of intelligent software for the automation of in-house financial processes in small and medium-sized companies, has received a research grant worth Euro 1.75 million from the Investment Bank of the State of Brandenburg (ILB). The money is being provided from the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Smacc will use the grant to step up its research and development in the field of artificial intelligence, or AI, in the domain of finance for small companies.
The tremendous gain in efficiency that Smacc’s AI-based software offers for companies and business as a whole impressed the ILB: SME entrepreneurs get a real-time synopsis of their finances, enabling them to make decisions quickly and on a well-founded basis. Since accountants no longer need to sort through receipts and do manual bookkeeping, around 80 per cent of their working time will be freed up for activities that bring in more added value, such as quality assurance of the books, periodic closing of accounts or preparation of financial reports for planning and controlling routines.
“This grant is a fantastic affirmation of the innovative strength of both Smacc and the State of Brandenburg”, says Janosch Novak, co-founder and Managing Director of Smacc. “It will enable us to attract further high-calibre staff to the firm and expand our technology leadership in the field of artificial intelligence for process automation in finance even further.”
Automated accounting today, business development forecasts tomorrow
In the medium-term, Smacc not only wants to automate financial processes such as ongoing accounting, but also to make its solution so intelligent that it can use existing corporate data to prepare independent forecasts of the future development of the business. Business owners then gain early insights into their financial developments and are able to respond straight away.
“Our goal is nothing short of changing accounting in small and medium-sized businesses forever. Smacc is finally bringing a high degree of digitisation and automation to this part of the company”, says Uli Erxleben, co-founder and Managing Director of Smacc.
Smacc takes over Disdar
Smacc has taken over all of the material and immaterial assets, along with the core development team, of the company Disdar which specialises in the field of deep learning using neural networks. With this takeover, Smacc is first and foremost gaining some of the best minds and most experienced developers in the field of artificial intelligence. Disdar’s technology is also the ideal complement to Smacc’s proprietary software for reading and interpreting data from invoices and receipts.
19-page report: “Better financial processes thanks to artificial intelligence”
Financial transparency is of paramount importance for all companies. Small and medium-sized companies in Germany especially still have the potential for improvement. According to a study by the University of Mannheim, 75 per cent of insolvencies in Germany are the result of inadequate transparency of the company’s finances. AI-assisted accounting provides a solution. Smacc’s whitepaper describes in detail how it works, how AI is already being used today and what will be possible in the near future.
The report is available to download via the link below: https://www.smacc.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/finance-with-artificial-intelligence.pdf
About Smacc
Smacc offers innovative software and services that use methods from artificial intelligence such as machine learning to automate financial processes in companies and to offer enterprises real-time transparency as well as forecasts of their future financial developments. Smacc customers are already achieving a degree of automation of 80 per cent in their ongoing accounting practices and associated financial processes – and this percentage is rising. Smacc GmbH was founded in 2015 by Dr Ulrich Erxleben, Janosch Novak and Stefan Korsch in Potsdam. The company employs over 50 people and looks after hundreds of companies with 1 to 1,000 employees. In June 2016, Smacc closed a series A financing round for Euro 3.5 million. More information: http://www.smacc.io
About ERDF
The European Union has allocated Brandenburg a total of €845.6 million for the 2014-2020 programming period. The aims behind the ERDF are to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union and to redress regional imbalances. It is partly thanks to support from the European Union that Brandenburg has made significant progress in its economic and regional development. More information: http://www.efre.brandenburg.de
