As we speak Zalos, a London- and San Francisco-based developer of Laptop Brokers for finance operations, introduced a €3.1 million ($3.6 million) Seed spherical to increase past the key midmarket ERPs and into giant enterprise deployments and on-premise techniques.
The funding spherical was led by 14 Peaks with participation from Cohen Circle, 20VC and notable angels.
“Finance groups have the techniques, however they’re nonetheless doing the work manually as a result of the stack isn’t related,” mentioned William Fairbairn, CEO and co-founder of Zalos. “We constructed Zalos on the idea that CFOs shouldn’t want to tear out their present stack to undertake the most recent in AI, we wish to begin by sitting on high of what’s already there. Laptop Brokers that may log in and run the workflow finish to finish are the quickest path to actual transformation in finance operations.”
Latest EU-Startups protection highlights comparable exercise together with Cleavr, a Paris-based firm that secured €1 million to automate accounts receivable processes; Diligent AI, which raised €2.1 million to use AI brokers to KYC and AML workflows; Stacks, which secured €19 million to streamline reporting and month-end finance processes; and Munich-based Interloom, which raised €14.2 million to develop AI agent information infrastructure for enterprise operations.
Collectively, these rounds quantity to over €36 million, pointing to regular capital deployment into automation throughout finance and adjoining enterprise features. Inside this context, Zalos’ method – deploying brokers that function instantly on high of present ERP techniques by way of consumer interfaces moderately than APIs – aligns with a wider shift in the direction of non-invasive automation methods that keep away from system substitute.
Whereas a lot of the current exercise has been concentrated in continental Europe, notably France and Germany, Zalos represents a UK-linked entrant into the identical rising class.
Hung Hoang, CTO and co-founder of Zalos provides: “The chance Zalos is addressing displays a structural actuality in enterprise finance. Legacy ERPs’ pace of innovation has stalled, resulting in rising handbook work within the place of transformative automation. AI-native ERPs might provide a reputable various for firms that haven’t but dedicated to a system. However for almost all of midmarket and enterprise finance groups, changing an embedded ERP isn’t a gorgeous choice; years of processes have been constructed round it, and too many painful system implementations stay recent in reminiscence.
“The rise of dependable Laptop Brokers creates a 3rd path: automation that sits on high of the present stack and operates it as a human would. These brokers are educated as soon as with display screen recordings, then the method is automated perpetually, by no means taking a vacation, and at a pace and consistency an individual can not match.”
Based in 2025, Zalos’ Laptop Brokers log into ERPs and different techniques with a username and password, then automating a spread of repetitive finance processes, starting from billing to reconciliations to accounts payable.
The corporate was based by CEO William Fairbairn and CTO Hung Hoang. Fairbairn spent years at Agicap talking with tons of of CFOs, and heard the identical frustration persistently: ERP implementations take greater than twelve months, ship restricted upside after they go nicely, and carry actual profession threat after they go incorrect. Hoang left Apple Pay after 5 years and have become centered on Laptop Brokers particularly as a result of they keep away from the API downside that has stalled so many automation efforts in finance.
Zalos’ Laptop Brokers work by changing display screen recordings of finance workflows inside techniques or Excel into brokers. They function inside ERPs, Excel, e-mail and inside instruments – logging in, clicking the screens, getting into information, or checking towards controls. The agent actions are documented in an auditable log, alongside enterprise safety.
The corporate says that fashionable finance groups run on a fragmented stack of ERPs, CRMs, spreadsheets, e-mail, and banking platforms that had been by no means designed to speak to one another. APIs between these techniques are sometimes lacking or incomplete, which implies finance groups grow to be the human API themselves, manually stitching information throughout techniques to finish billing cycles, shut the books, and produce reporting their enterprise is dependent upon.
Emanuele Larocca, Principal at 14 Peaks: “Finance operations is likely one of the final areas the place the complexity and embeddedness of the underlying techniques have made it genuinely laborious for CFOs to unlock the ROI promised by AI. What Zalos has constructed sidesteps that downside solely. By working the techniques as a human would, coaching brokers with display screen recordings, they ship the true energy of finance transformation with out dropping any area experience or asking CFOs to tear out techniques they’ve spent years configuring.”
The platform works inside NetSuite, Sage, and SAP S/4HANA, with no heavy integrations required. Each agent motion is captured in an auditable log, and the platform is constructed to enterprise safety requirements together with SOC 2 Half II certification, enterprise single sign-on, role-based entry controls, and on-premise deployment choices.
Widespread use circumstances embody billing automation throughout a number of techniques, month-end reconciliations, and cross-system KPI reporting throughout a number of ERP situations.
Nate Pontician, Vice President at Cohen Circle: “Zalos is redefining what software program means for the CFOs. Zalos’ laptop brokers don’t simply help; they log in, navigate techniques, and full workflows end-to-end. They’re giving finance professionals again hours misplaced to repetitive duties to allow them to deal with what really strikes the enterprise ahead. It’s not a copilot… it’s a colleague.”
By constructing a wide-reaching context graph throughout the finance stack, the corporate goals to assist CFOs deploy a swarm of brokers and drive a step-change of their finance group’s impression.
