Light raises $30m Series A to replace legacy ERP with its AI-native finance platform

Light raises $30m Series A to build an AI-native finance platform

Light, founded in 2022, secured $30m in Series A funding on September 25, 2025, bringing total funding to $43m. The round was led by Balderton Capital with participation from Atomico, Cherry, Seedcamp, and Entrée, plus angels including Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face) and Charles Songhurst (Meta). Light reports 30x growth over the past year as it positions itself as an alternative to legacy ERP stacks.

Unlike tools that bolt AI onto older systems, Light embeds AI across the core finance stack. The platform targets multi-entity accounting, global payments, and expense management, aiming to deliver near-instant configuration and faster throughput than traditional systems. For context, see what an ERP typically covers.

Use of funds: accelerate global expansion, open a New York office, triple the engineering team by mid-2026, roll out a process optimisation workbench, and scale deployment operations.

CEO Jonathan Sanders said, "We're not patching old systems with chatbots. We built finance software from scratch for how companies actually operate today. Companies shouldn't have to spend $50,000 and 5 months just to expand into a new country. With Light, it happens instantly. ERP was built for factories. Light is built for the fastest-growing companies of the 21st century."

Balderton partner Rob Moffat said the firm backed Light because it rebuilt the general ledger from first principles rather than layering AI onto legacy tech-calling the result a step-change for high-growth companies.

Why finance leaders should care

• ERP replacement vs. augmentation: Assess whether a phased migration or selective module replacement (AP, expenses, payments) reduces risk while proving value.
• Close speed and control: Validate gains in time-to-close, approval cycle times, and exception rates without compromising auditability.
• Multi-entity at scale: Check if consolidations, eliminations, and multi-currency are real-time, with granular audit trails and policy workflows.
• Total cost of ownership: Compare license, implementation, integrations, and maintenance versus current ERP + add-ons; verify the "instant" country expansion claim in a pilot.

Diligence checklist

• Security and compliance: SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, SOX control design, data residency, role-based access, and segregation of duties.
• Integrations: Banks, payroll, tax engines, HRIS, data warehouse, and BI; API coverage, webhooks, and event logs.
• Reporting: Consolidations, FX remeasurement, eliminations, audit logs, custom dimensions, and scheduled reports.
• Implementation: Data migration tooling, historical import, change management, and SLAs for support and uptime.

What's next

• US expansion anchored by a New York office and scaled deployments through 2026.
• Release of a process optimisation workbench to refine close, AP/AR, and spend flows based on observed data.

Investors at a glance

• Lead: Balderton Capital
• Participants: Atomico, Cherry, Seedcamp, Entrée
• Angels: Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face), Charles Songhurst (Meta), and several Light customers

Action for CFOs and controllers

• Run a 6-8 week pilot on one entity or process (e.g., AP + expenses) with baseline metrics: cycle time, exception rate, and rework hours.
• Stress-test multi-entity consolidation and FX with real data; validate audit trails end-to-end.
• Model 3-year TCO, including deprecation of overlapping tools and expected headcount redeployment.

If you're assessing practical AI tools that pair with finance workflows, explore this curated list: AI tools for finance.