Goldman Sachs Leads $75M Bet on AI Audit Platform Fieldguide, Valued at $700M

In an industry grappling with a severe and sustained exodus of professionals, artificial intelligence is stepping in to fill the gap. Fieldguide, a San Francisco-based startup built specifically for the accounting and audit sector, announced on Monday a $75 million Series C funding round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The investment values the company at $700 million and signals growing institutional confidence in AI’s potential to overhaul traditional professional services.

The round included participation from new investor Geodesic Capital and existing backers Bessemer Venture Partners, 8VC, and Thomson Reuters. Fieldguide’s core proposition is to automate the labor-intensive, repetitive tasks that dominate audit and compliance work, freeing up human accountants for higher-value analysis and client advisory roles.

"We’re addressing what I’d call an existential crisis," said Jin Chang, Fieldguide’s CEO and a former accountant who founded the company in 2020. "The pipeline of new CPAs is drying up, while a majority of the current workforce is nearing retirement. The math simply doesn’t work unless we change how the work gets done." Industry data cited by the company shows CPA exam candidates at a 17-year low, with over 75% of practicing CPAs expected to retire within the next decade.

Chang’s vision predates the ChatGPT boom. After a stint at the now-shuttered AI-powered law firm Atrium, he sought to apply similar automation principles to accounting. Rather than building a new-age accounting firm, Fieldguide sells its software platform to established firms, integrating with their existing workflows. Initially, the AI-native approach was a hard sell, but the generative AI wave that followed validated the strategy. "In the last 18 months, the industry’s appetite shifted from curiosity to urgent demand," Chang noted.

The platform now counts half of the top 100 U.S. accounting firms as clients, including Big Four auditor KPMG, though adoption levels of its advanced "agentic" tools vary. Fieldguide’s AI agents are designed to handle tasks often outsourced offshore—such as testing financial statement figures, drafting audit plans, and writing procedural checklists. "Our AI executes the first pass. Humans then review and interpret," Chang explained. "This isn’t about replacing auditors; it’s about accelerating their careers and reducing burnout by removing the grind."

Darren Cohen, Global Co-Head of Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, said his team had tracked Fieldguide for nearly two years before leading the round. "What stood out was the profound efficiency gain—clients reported 30–40% improvements," Cohen told Fortune. "This isn’t just a generic LLM wrapper. It’s a deep, domain-specific solution built by people who intimately understand the audit process."

Fieldguide plans to double its 160-person team over the next year, hiring both engineers and former auditors. While a strategic sale to a major accounting firm remains a possibility, Cohen expressed hope for an eventual IPO. "The goal is to scale across audit, tax, and accounting, and go public when the time is right," he said.

Reader Reactions:

Michael R., Audit Partner in Chicago: "This is the direction the profession has to go. We’re struggling to find staff for basic compliance work. If AI can handle the routine, our people can focus on complex judgment and client service—where we truly add value."

Priya V., Junior Accountant in Austin: "I welcome tools that take the monotony out of my day. But I worry about the message it sends to students considering accounting. Is the future just supervising machines? We need to better articulate the evolving role."

David L., Financial Regulation Analyst in D.C.: "Another overhyped ‘AI solution’ funded by Wall Street. Auditing requires professional skepticism and judgment—not just pattern matching. This is a cost-cutting play disguised as innovation, and it risks undermining audit quality."

Susan T., CFO at a Mid-Sized Tech Firm: "If this makes audits more efficient and less disruptive for my team, I’m all for it. Our auditors spend weeks on-site sifting through paperwork. Freeing them from that should improve their focus on material risks."