Collective raises $100 million for AI-based tax and payroll services for solo businesses

Collective, a San Francisco company that sells AI-based accounting, tax and payroll services to self-employed business owners, announced $100 million in new funding on Thursday: a $40 million Series B and a $60 million growth facility from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund, according to its press release. The company launched in September 2020.

How it started

Collective calls its customers "Businesses-of-One" and says it launched in September 2020 with what it described as the first online back-office platform for them. Co-founder and chief executive Hooman Radfar co-founded the web-engagement company AddThis, which Oracle later acquired, and was a partner at the venture firm Expa, according to the biography on the company's blog.

Radfar has put the aim in these words: "Self-employed people should be able to focus on their passion, not their paperwork," he wrote when Collective acquired the accounting startup Open Ledger in April 2026.

How it grew

In May 2021 Collective announced a $20 million Series A led by General Catalyst. In that post it said it had grown eightfold since its seed round, that nearly 20,000 founders had applied for membership, and that it had saved its average member over $10,000 a year in taxes. In July 2023 it announced $50 million from investors including Innovius Capital, Gradient Ventures and General Catalyst, saying the money would go toward AI features across its product suite.

It launched Collective Accounting, which it called the first AI-powered, integrated accounting suite for solopreneurs, in March 2024, according to the company's blog index. In 2026 it bought Open Ledger and, on July 22, launched an Insurance Center with Coverdash for business insurance and Solo Health for major medical coverage.

In the latest announcement the company said its annual recurring revenue is growing 120% year on year and that its platform has saved members an estimated $350 million in taxes, with its highest earners saving up to $40,000 a year. It said its support team, which it described as powered by AI, resolves 50% of support requests autonomously while keeping a 4.5-star satisfaction rating. The release does not give the number of members or the revenue.

The Series B was led by General Catalyst, QED Investors and Gradient Ventures, with Intuit Ventures, FT Partners and SemperVirens, the company said. The company called the $60 million a growth facility "to fuel customer acquisition." Collective has not disclosed specifics about it, Tech Funding News reported.

What the founders say

"AI is leveling the playing field, making it possible for a single individual to build a powerful, highly profitable enterprise," Radfar said in the release. "Traditional accounting firms scale by adding people. Collective scales with intelligence."

In a post on the company blog on Thursday, Radfar wrote that "AI is making it possible for a single person to build what once required an entire company."

Pranav Singhvi, a partner and co-head of the Customer Value Fund at General Catalyst, said in the release: "With CVF, we look for companies with high-quality unit economics and a large market opportunity."

What's next

The company said the funding will accelerate product development in banking and insurance. In his blog post, Radfar wrote that Collective will expand to serve more kinds of businesses, including those with employees, and use AI to take more of the work out of accounting, taxes, payroll and support.