There is a new accounting software in the town that boosts new value of $17.2 million and hopes to cheer up. Field, the company, hopes to automate greedy work.

"The tax industry is facing a real crisis," Leroy Kerry, co-founder CEO of Field, told TechCrunch. He said many CPAs are retired and a reduced number of students are entering the field, citing popular research in 2021 reports on topics from the International Certified Professional Accounting Association.

“Companies simply don’t have enough people to handle the benefits effectively,” he said. “At the same time, professionals are stuck in paperwork, spending nearly half of their time on low-value tasks that can be automated.”

So he worked with Atul Ramachandran, the current CTO of the company, to use AI to complete the life cycle of a tax return.

“It reads documents, uses reasoning to apply each company’s specific approach to tax strategies, and then enters the data into its existing software system,” Kerry said. When AI notices scenarios that require human input, it marks it for review, “maintaining control of humans while eliminating the boring work.”

There are others in this field, including tax preparation and accounting assistant software, black ore and foundations. Kerry said his product is different from others because AI is specifically used in tax workflows, plugging it directly into a software system rather than forcing customers to overhaul the existing technology.

The venture capital firm NorthZone led Field's 17.2 million rounds, with Ventures and Neo also competed on the first day.

Life seems to be complete for Kerry, and Kerry often doesn't see people like him running a tech company. He grew up in south London and was raised by a single mother in low-income housing.

“Being CEO is not what I see,” he said.

Still, he knew he wanted to be a businessman, "what was that meant at the time." He began working in a call center while in school and college. He said he had no grades in elementary school, but he did have the courage. He studied architecture at university, graduated Friday and returned to sales on Monday.

“In a year, I was managing a team and working with startups,” he said. “One of the startups became a unicorn and I ended up joining them.”

That was his entry into the world of risk and startups. He has since been the chief of staff for high-growth companies, working in businesses in the UK and Sweden. “Those years taught me how to build through chaos and focus on clients relentlessly.”

His ambitions led him to go to the United States to set up his own company. Carey said he and his team went straight to the small tax offices in Colorado and Arizona and observed how the team still relied on paper and fax machines. Field will use its new capital to expand its team and hire more tax engineers.

"Our long-term vision extends to return preparation and becoming the underlying AI infrastructure for the entire tax industry - everything from customer collaboration to document management and audit preparation," Kerry said.

“The industry has been waiting for its AI moment and we’re just starting out,” he said.