Benford, a fintech operating as a registered audit firm in Norway, has secured €5 million in pre-seed funding to establish a technology-driven financial audit practice that handles statutory audits from start to finish. Rather than developing tools for existing auditors to use, Benford itself functions as the auditor, pairing its AuditOS platform with qualified human auditors.
The funding round was backed by firstminute capital, Global Founders Capital, Sondo, and a group of founders who created widely-used accounting software: Peter ter Maaten (HSO), Arthur Waller and Quentin de Metz (Pennylane), Alexandre Prot (Qonto), the Spandow family (Amesto), and others. Benford's founding team includes Mads Bogen Øye, Thibault Mallion and Andreas Rystad, who previously worked at Palantir, Goldman Sachs and One Peak.
The audit sector across Europe faces significant structural challenges. Mid-market and small-business segments have been largely abandoned by major firms, consolidators are acquiring practices without modernising them, independent firms lack resources to upgrade their operations, and the profession is losing staff faster than it can recruit new talent. Meanwhile, audit costs continue to rise.
Audit is one of the few services where the customer experience has gotten worse every year while the bill has gone up
Thibault Mallion, co-founder and co-CEO of Benford
Benford's approach centres on vertical integration: the company holds the audit licence, develops the technology platform, and directly employs auditors who determine scope, make judgement calls on exceptions, and sign off on opinions. Rather than simply automating auditor workflows, the model shifts routine tasks to software while preserving human expertise where it matters most.
We are not changing what an audit is. We are changing how it is delivered.
Thibault Mallion, co-founder and co-CEO of Benford
According to Mads Bogen Øye, previous modernisation efforts have focused narrowly on the auditor's workspace while leaving the broader firm structure unchanged. Benford's AuditOS integrates with the operational systems companies depend on—ERP platforms, subledgers, invoicing, banking systems and others—to create a unified audit intelligence layer that strengthens with each engagement. All tests, inputs and traces are logged and assigned to specific auditors.
The platform consolidates follow-up work in a shared interface, reducing the time finance teams spend on audit coordination—a cost that typically remains invisible on invoices. Audits are tailored to each client's actual needs, and work carries forward year to year, allowing subsequent audits to build on completed groundwork rather than starting from scratch.
For twenty years, innovation in audit has meant selling tools to auditors, and most audits are still done the old way. Audit is a huge, structurally overlooked market that nobody has tried to rebuild from first principles
Michael Stothard, partner at firstminute capital
The Big Four are pulling back from the mid-market, and the technology to do this properly has only just arrived. Mads, Thibault and Andreas are the rare team that can both build the software and handle the execution of a full end-to-end service in a complex industry. That combination is exactly what it takes to build the next generation of audit.
Michael Stothard, partner at firstminute capital
No process is better suited to automation than audit's groundwork, and few are less automated. It is the clients who pay the price, both in fees and in the internal hours spent facilitating a process that software should be doing.
David Sainteff, Partner at GFC
Benford will use the funding to expand its offices in London and Oslo, enter the Swedish market and establish operations elsewhere across Europe. The firm is actively recruiting auditors and engineers to scale the business.
Source: Tech.eu
