At just 24 years old, Pryce Yebesi has already made a name for himself in the tech industry, having sold his crypto invoicing company Utopia Labs to Coinbase for an undisclosed amount. Now, he's back with a new venture, OpenLedger, an AI-driven accounting solution that aims to revolutionize the way businesses manage their finances.

Yebesi's inspiration for OpenLedger came from his experience at Utopia Labs, where he realized that businesses were still using outdated accounting software. "When we built invoicing products at Utopia, we saved our customers 70-80% of the time they spent on accounting tasks. That experience led me to realize the need for more extensible and embedded accounting solutions," Yebesi told TechCrunch. OpenLedger is his answer to that challenge, offering an AI-driven, modular accounting tool that integrates with existing products used by enterprises and small businesses.

After his company's exit, Yebesi served as an entrepreneur-in-resident at Washington University in St. Louis, where he worked with small businesses and saw firsthand the struggles they faced with accounting software. He teamed up with Ashytn Bell, who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, to launch OpenLedger. The company has already raised $3 million in a round led by Kindred Ventures, with additional investors including Adventure Fund, Venture at Brex, Guy Friedman, and Zach Abram.

OpenLedger's solution offers accounting features in the form of embeddable components, APIs, and a ledger database, which enables AI-driven categorization, reconciliation, and financial reporting. According to Yebesi, "OpenLedger aggregates and orchestrates every data source for companies, then allows AI to execute accounting functions with full financial context." This approach sets OpenLedger apart from legacy players like QuickBooks and other startups like Layer and Teal.

What makes OpenLedger's approach unique is its reimagined data layer of financial transactions. Yebesi and his team spent seven months developing data specifically designed to allow data transaction databases to interact with large language models (LLMs) without exposing consumer data to base models. This innovation is expected to minimize context limits, latency, and security issues.

OpenLedger has already signed some contracts, although Yebesi declined to disclose the names of its clients. The company works with SaaS companies, fintech, and banks, which in turn work with small- and medium-sized businesses. OpenLedger is still in beta, but plans to fully release by the end of this month. The company will use the fresh capital to hire talent in product, engineering, and business development.

Yebesi's vision for OpenLedger is ambitious, with plans to support at least a million end users by the end of this year. He emphasized the importance of keeping a lean team and focusing on helping thousands of small businesses spend more time with their customers and less time closing their books. With its innovative approach and significant funding, OpenLedger is poised to make a significant impact in the accounting software space.

As the company continues to grow and expand, it will be interesting to see how OpenLedger's AI-driven solution disrupts the traditional accounting software landscape. With Yebesi at the helm, OpenLedger is well-positioned to make a lasting impact on the industry.