SCULPTING THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL REPORTING: THE INSCOPE REVOLUTION

TRANSFORMING THE MUNDANE INTO MARVEL: INSCOPE'S VISION

In the startup world, technology tends to follow the sexy – such is the nature of most things. Which is to say that the unassuming, essential process of financial reporting too often lives in the shadows. Or at least it did, until the web3-made-real fintech InScope, founded in 2023 by Mary Antony and Kelsey Gootnick of San Francisco, firmly brought financial audits and reporting into the technological future. Antony and Gootnick both have a history of working in the accounting departments of big corporations like Flexport and Yelp before spinning off to form InScope.

THE LEGACY OF FINANCIAL MISTAKES: A CATALYST FOR CHANGE

Bearing in mind the punitive repercussions that even minor errors in financial reporting can have wrought, as in the case of the ill-fated Lyft financial boondoggle, InScope’s raison d’être rounds into sharp relief. The disharmonious interweave of financial disclosures – an unfortunate consequence of its complexity and labour-intensive nature – was ripe for reinvention. It was, however, the legacy of this complex history fraught with inadvertent slip-ups that provided the impetus for Antony and Gootnick’s technical reinvention.

INSCOPE'S TRAILBLAZING SOLUTION: THE LEGACY OF INNOVATION

Powered by machine learning and large language models, InScope aimed to automate financial reporting and the costs and time spent on auditing for mid-market and enterprise companies. Initially, InScope focused on automating GAAP and non-GAAP reports, and the most difficult to create – the cash flow statement. In the future, financial statements will be so easy to create they will be virtually foolproof. This was part of InScope’s effort to permanently change the future of finance to aid technology.

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN FINANCIAL REPORTING

The very first product in the InScope suite – which automated the creation of cash flow statements – marked a turning point for financial reporting when Antony first started. ‘Why do all those excel sheets bother me? Why do I have to do a sudoku puzzle every month?’ he says. ‘I create financial statements that are absolutely correct and way more time-efficient.’ InScope hopes to be the driving force behind this new legacy of financial reporting.

INSCOCE VS. THE WORLD: CARVING A UNIQUE LEGACY

Unlike the InScope database of private companies, both Workiva and most of the professional service firms peddling legacy software are squarely aimed at public companies. ‘Competitors yes, but InScope’s solutions are still orthogonal to theirs,’ he says, and gestures to Gootnick. Orange décolletage aside, they are the hacker and the wizard, the rebel and the faceless bureaucrat, sitting together at their table and suggesting a new era of symbiosis in the financial world. Antony calls InScope ‘a complementary software’. Antony later describes InScope’s legacy as similar to that of a parasite with talons. Workiva or any other database of public companies are like the oak tree – thick, stable, mature. But InScope clings to that tree, and grows from it.

FUELING GROWTH AND EXPANDING HORIZONS

With $4.3 million in seed funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners among other investors, InScope is now growing at a breakneck speed as it plans to expand its customer base and develop its product lineup, including boosting its AI capabilities. This marks the final stage of InScope’s evolution as a tech glacier, and thanks to this final surge in its growth, InScope sets itself apart from other financial tech companies as the unlikely protagonist of that movement.

LOOKING AHEAD: THE SUSTAINABLE LEGACY OF INSCOPE

Looking ahead however, the founders’ desire to change and streamline financial reporting for companies remains resolute as InScope looks to expand its customer base and product offerings. InScope’s is a legacy story for finance and technology intersecting in the digital age. A story of how innovation can change the way financial reporting is done for the better, increasing accuracy, taking less time, and becoming less expensive for its customers.

UNDERSTANDING LEGACY IN THE AGE OF INSCOPE

That was a clumsy paragraph. My conclusion. To sum it up, the story of InScope is the story of creativity, vision and relentless improvement, as financial reporting and auditing will be no more a long tedious process, but rather a game-changer that will reduce the risk of errors, and will set the bar of default for the new generation of financial tech. As a legacy for this new tech, the storytelling behind it needs to be bold as it will set the standard for companies to follow.