Khosla Ventures leads $10 million seed round for Ian Crosby’s AI bookkeeping startup Synthetic

Khosla Ventures led a $10 million seed round for Synthetic, a new startup from former Bench Accounting CEO Ian Crosby that aims to build a fully autonomous AI bookkeeper for accrual-based financial reporting. The round also included Basis Set Ventures and Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke. Synthetic remains in the design phase, and Crosby said the product may not yet be technically feasible with current AI models. The company plans to serve AI and software startups and will not launch unless the service can operate without human accountants. Crosby previously founded Bench, which shut down in 2024 before being sold, after he was fired by its board in 2021 following a rejected $250 million acquisition offer from Brex. Khosla partner Jon Chu said he backed Crosby after diligence with executives who worked with him after Bench, citing the founder’s later roles at Shopify and Teal, an accounting startup acquired by Mercury.