Campfire (YC S23)

Campfire emerges as a formidable player in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) sector, specifically targeting the $220+ billion global market dominated by legacy systems. Founded in 2023 by CEO John Glasgow, the company aims to modernize accounting and financial operations for mid-size and enterprise companies. Glasgow's journey provides a compelling narrative; his extensive experience in finance at firms like Fidelity and Adobe, coupled with his executive role at Invoice2go through its $625 million acquisition by Bill.com, exposed him to the profound inefficiencies of traditional ERPs. This firsthand frustration, particularly the reliance on spreadsheets during the acquisition's due diligence, was the catalyst for creating Campfire.

The company, which participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch, offers an AI-native ERP platform designed to replace outdated systems like NetSuite, SAP, and QuickBooks. Its core business revolves around providing a comprehensive suite of financial tools on a single, unified platform. This includes a powerful general ledger with multi-entity support, automated invoicing and billing, revenue recognition, close management, and advanced financial reporting. Campfire's business model caters to a diverse client base, from 50-employee startups to 5,000-employee enterprises across sectors like SaaS, manufacturing, and professional services, with notable customers including Replit, Advisor360, and Coder.

A key differentiator for the San Francisco-headquartered firm is its AI-first architecture. The platform features 'Ember AI,' a generative AI conversational interface powered by Anthropic's Claude models, which allows finance teams to query data and automate tasks using natural language. This capability, along with over 100 API endpoints and native integrations with solutions like Ramp and Salesforce, enables significant workflow automation and faster financial closes, with one customer reportedly reducing their month-end close from 15 days to just three. The company has demonstrated remarkable traction, achieving a 10x revenue increase in 10 months and securing $35 million in a Series A funding round led by Accel to fuel further product development and team expansion.

Keywords: AI-native ERP, financial automation, accounting platform, enterprise resource planning, John Glasgow, Y Combinator, general ledger, month-end close, revenue automation, financial reporting, Ember AI, NetSuite replacement, Accel, Foundation Capital, conversational AI, finance software, mid-market ERP, startup accounting, API integration, financial consolidation