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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
How Ledge Reached $1M ARR with 24 Customers Paying $3K/Month | Tal Kirschenbaum
00:26:52
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- [00:00]
A
Since we don't know your current revenue, are you comfortable sharing a multiple range that you just closed?
- [00:05]
B
The multiple range for us was in kind of a mid double digit one
- [00:10]
A
between like 10 and 20x, no more than that. You told us earlier our average revenue per user per month is about 3,000amonth. And say 24 customers paying that price point, breaching that million dollar AR point, are you guys above that at that point? Is that math accurate?
- [00:23]
B
We're above that.
- [00:23]
A
I think you left in 2022. Zero pays $2.5 billion. I think in 2025 if you join me on a one year cliff and four year pretty standard in startup world. You gave up and you can't help but go try to say man, how much did I lose? Because you know the price is 2.5 billion, right?
- [00:40]
B
You know it's in the seven kind of digit range.
- [00:42]
A
How are you building a moat at Ledge so that when Claude releases their next announcement, you're not replaced by their B2B ERP automatic NetSuite closing tool. Hey folks, my guest today is Tal Kershawbaum. He's the co founder and CEO at Ledge, an AI native financial close platform. Before founding the business, his experience includes leading M and A transactions at Meta, developing new products at Melio, the payments company. Earlier in his career he was strategy consulting and BCG and a venture capital associate at Intel Capital. Tal, you ready to take us to the top?
- [01:13]
B
Yep, absolutely. Let's do it.
- [01:15]
A
I get, I get pitched all the time from folks saying we're financial AI software. You have so intentionally positioned. You use the word closed software, which I love because my first question to these generic companies is what do you actually help folks do? So tell us more about the business. What are you selling?
- [01:31]
B
We work with finance teams at mid market enterprise sized companies to really help them automate month and close, which of course is one of the most kind of repetitive, manual, time consuming tasks that finance teams struggle with. Something that I'm also quite familiar with. We were able to help them get a better sense of how this process is progressing for themselves, their broader team, and then actually able to help them execute tasks within that process. By leveraging the engine that we've built and the AI agents that are built on top of it.
- [02:04]
A
My research team pointed out to me, you know, one of the trending terms when you dig deep into this space are things like how to use AI with QuickBooks or how to use AI with NetSuite. I could not find even going over integrations, an Intuit logo anywhere but you do netsuite a ton. Am I reading that right? That means you're more focused on the enterprise, correct?
- [02:22]
B
Correct. We like to think of it as been market enterprise starting at, you know, a finance team of at least five people is usually when it starts becoming a massive project. You've got to coordinate different people, you've got dependencies between different tasks, you've got data that is spread across multiple different disparate data sources. And that is really when a solution like ours is able to add a ton of value, to streamline all that data into one single place and then to be actually able to automate some of those tasks by the use of AI agents.
- [02:53]
A
So I want to get in obviously to the growth story, how I came up with the idea, the launch and how you got to where you are today. Before we do that though, give me some context. Somebody listening today if they were going to sign up to Ledge, what's your average customer paying you per month or per year today?
- [03:04]
B
You know, it's a few thousand doll per month. It's a monthly SaaS fee. We are not a seat based solution. We think that at this day and age we're helping teams become leaner and much more effective. We're helping teams be able to support a scaling business without necessarily having to scale the size of the finance team. And so the way that pricing for us is built is really around the complexity of the business. More entities, currencies, distribution channel a business has to have. Generally speaking, our price point is going to be higher, but aside from that, it really is about how can we help them, those teams become much more efficient and how can we essentially get them to a place where some of their engineering colleagues are in today being able to leverage AI to run the most time consuming, repetitive tasks that they deal with and really be able to shift their focus to be more of guiders in this process. Back at the place where everyone joined finance wanting to be, which is a strategic thought partner to the business.
- [04:08]
A
So it's fair to to say you don't upsell by seats, you really upsell by additional product features related to currency or other integration sources. And when you do that and look at your current customer base, the average customer, you said a few thousand, is it fair to say 3k per month is a good average?
- [04:23]
B
That is, that is fair to say. Yes, it's decent. Interesting.
- [04:26]
A
Any pushback on the pricing structure? There's a lot of folks trying to like debating, you know, do we do seat pricing? Is it dead in the age of AI have you regretted that decision yet or is it very spot on, you think?
- [04:36]
B
No, not at all. If anything, we have especially finance teams also somewhat being involved in procurement and dealing with, let's say, cursor based pricing. Question does come up. Are you eventually going to evolve the pricing model and start an agent based pricing structure? And I think that's something that may happen over the course of time, but at least for now, we try to keep it simple and also predictable and transparent. When you think of our user base, finance folks, that is something that they appreciate. And so of course that's how we, we wanted to build our pricing.
- [05:10]
A
And before we get your backstory, how, how many customers are you serving now? Today?
- [05:14]
B
A few, dozens of customers. We're very proud to have some public companies that we support as well as some, you know, smaller companies that are experiencing tremendous growth. Our customer base tends to be skewed to tech companies, primarily in the US and in Europe.
- [05:32]
A
Okay, so a couple dozen, fair to say, maybe between like 24 and 100. Not yet at 100.
- [05:36]
B
Correct.
- [05:36]
A
Okay, very cool. Let's give the backstory here. You, right, you come from consulting, you come from meta M A, you come from payments. How does sort of all these, you know, genetic lineages of you sort of result in ledge?
- [05:47]
B
It actually starts with the actual genetic lineage. In my specific case, I grew up in an environment that values entrepreneurship to a massive extent. And I always say I, I don't have any other option. I've never had any other option aside from being an entrepreneur. In every job interview I've ever had in my life, people would always ask me, what's the end game? And I would always say it's eventually to do my own thing. And so I view the different steps in my professional career as ones leading up to my entrepreneurial venture and as ones that are able to, to, to better equip me to deliver against that end game. In my specific case, what about the
- [06:28]
A
Israeli Defense Forces seems to just pump out winning software CEOs Roy Mann, Monday. I mean, I could go on and on and on. I've never met, maybe it's because they don't talk about it, but I've never met a failure who came from the idf.
- [06:41]
B
No, no, I'm, you know, statistics are what they are. I think one of the things that tend to generate entrepreneurs or tend to push people into, into entrepreneurship is necessity. And if you think of a, you know, like Israel, where military service is mandatory, that has to do with necessity. And one of the key things that you're taught at a very young age post high school is how can you operate effectively, how can you drive meaningful impact and value even with scarce, limited resources? I think it's one of the common traits people are able to gain from serving in, in the Israeli Defense Forces. And so if anything that might be, that may be it.
- [07:25]
A
All right, take us forward to Ledge. When did you guys write the first line of code for the software?
- [07:29]
B
So about three years ago. Ledge, its origin actually started with Melio. Melio is a payments company that experienced some. Some challenges on its own, but actually had the ability to solve those challenges. Because it's a very sophisticated company. Its engineering team is, I'd say, very capable of generating any type of internal infrastructure that they may need that pertains specifically not just to payments, but to finance, to banking, to data flows that are related to that in general. So Amelia was able to develop that infrastructure internally. I noticed that other companies as well struggle with the exact same issues, but don't have the relevant know how required to develop a similar internal solution. And even if they're able to bring in that knowledge in house, it is way outside of their core competency and therefore they should probably not go through the built route. And that really led us to the ledge.
- [08:29]
A
Guys, remember, I am not just a YouTuber. I'm investing in my third fund. We've deployed $250 million into 550 software companies so far. Again, @founderpath.com if you're interested in capital, I would love to cut you a check because I know you're investing in your education. You watch my show. So sign up@founderpath.com and when you get the onboarding email, I reply. And I see all those. Just reply and say, nathan, I found you through YouTube and I'll make sure to prioritize you. I would love to cut you a check. Check out founderpath.com I mean, you were, I assume, a major part of. Of the business, Malio Payments. I mean, the company is not a small company based off public reporting. 153 million of revenue in early 2025 from multiple sources. Probably bigger than that today. 654 million raised. You joined? I believe in 2020, when I think the Series A done, maybe the Series B was just closing for 48 million, but the majority of the growth, it sounds like happened after you joined. You gave up a lot to go into Ledge. What made you sort of jump ship? And can you quantify maybe how much you gave up to go bet on Ledge?
- [09:28]
B
I can. Melio was recently acquired by Zero, the ERP company. And so it was, you know, I think a great acquisition by Zero and a great outcome for shareholders at meo. And so as, as, as part of that, you can't help but going through the exercise, the exercise of, of the equity, the unvested options that you gave up. But again, I think for myself, I left me at a time when I couldn't think of anything else but Ledge and the idea behind it. And I was very fortunate to have the support of the founders at the company at Melio, who by the way also invested in Ledge personally as angels. And we're also very close. We do our off sites at their office as an example. And so for me it was really was about a specific point in time when my co founder and I identified an opportunity that we just couldn't ignore.
- [10:22]
A
Just to be clear, I mean I want to get a sense of it because every founder listening or every cpo, right? You were director of project Melia is thinking about, man, when do I make the jump? Right? You were there in 2020, I think you left in 2022. Zero pays $2.5 billion I think in 2025. If I'm, now I'm speculating, okay, maybe you can confirm or deny, but if you join Melio on a one year cliff and four year vest, which is pretty standard in startup world, you gave up options when you left to launch Ledge, is that true? And you can't help but go try to say, man, how much did I lose? Because you know the price is 2.5 billion, right?
- [10:53]
B
No, no, I, I, I know the exact, I know the exact figure. Will you share it?
- [10:58]
A
What was the range?
- [10:59]
B
You know, it's in the seven kind of digit range. Okay, so it's, it's, it's definitely something that is difficult to, to kind of ignore. And yet I'm still hoping and confident that the decision will also turn out to be a, you know, a fantastic one also from kind of a personal monetary value as well. But for me, again, it really was much broader than that. It was, I had a ton of belief in Melio, felt that I had added value there, and at the same time felt that I couldn't let the idea of Ledge get away.
- [11:34]
A
All right, fair enough. Let's dive deeper into that. 2022, you launched ledge. Are you sole co founder? Did you raise on day one what the initial sort of cap table look like?
- [11:41]
B
So I have a co founder, a software CTO who's a phenomenal engineering leader, spent some time in Israeli Defense Forces as well, worked at larger companies like intel and Checkpoint, and then actually joined a few Israeli startups, rose all the way up through the ranks, eventually becoming VPR at a few Israeli companies as well as an Israeli unicorn. So founded a company with. Together we started out raising capital towards the tail end of 22 when there were concerns about a potential recession. And it was a fairly abrupt, I'd say, change in atmosphere and sentiment, going from the craziest of days early on in 22 to a lot of concern towards the tail end of that year, which is when we started the company. When we raised our seed fund, we had, I'd say, a lot of luck in finding a great partner for us with New Enterprise Associates nea. And specifically we teamed up with at the time, a partner who knew a lot of. About what it was that we were building, having spent time as an operator himself at Airbnb, building a lot of the financial kind of backbone and infrastructure there. And so the fit that we had with him was tremendous and we were quite fortunate, I think, in that regard.
- [12:58]
A
That was, I believe, closed in February of 2023. NEA lead Melio, you know, patting you on the back saying, go for it, vertex, jumped in, FJ Labs, etc. Most folks in a seed round are selling between 15, 20% equity. Were you sort of in that same range?
- [13:12]
B
Yes, yes, we were.
- [13:13]
A
Okay. Okay, got it. So that would put you like, you're talking like 30 pre money, 40 posts, sort of in that range.
- [13:19]
B
Yeah, that's fair to say.
- [13:20]
A
Interesting. Okay, so let's now fast forward. Have you raised additional capital or you're still able to survive and grow on that initial 9 million we have, we've
- [13:28]
B
recently raised over the past few months or Series A? Not yet announcing it though, and so I'm not.
- [13:36]
A
Will you just. Let me see if I can. Let me see if I can cook that. So let me just give you the release schedule. We're recording here January 14th. This episode will not go out until June, March, until April 4. Will you have announced by then?
- [13:48]
B
I don't know yet. I need to. We're right now working on. On kind of the plan around that, as well as announcing, kind of officially announcing the latest products that we released about month and close, as well as being able to announce some interesting, exciting logos of. Of custom.
- [14:04]
A
Well, this is. This will be your decision then. Right, Because a lot of people will see this interview. I am happy you have it on recording. I'm happy to embargo this part of the show until you give me permission to lease it if you're comfortable sharing how much you raised. If you want to go into that and the new product, we can avoid it all together. It's up to you.
- [14:18]
B
Let's, let's avoid it for now. I appreciate the offer, I, I, I really do. But you know, we want to think this through, I think a little bit better.
- [14:27]
A
Okay, fair enough.
- [14:28]
B
My apologies for that.
- [14:29]
A
You're good to know. But okay, so recording us in January 2026, Series A, obviously. That's great. Look for the announcement coming out later. Tell us more though, how you know dilution is a real thing in the software world. How are you managing your own dilution as you go through this process?
- [14:44]
B
My co founder has a very simplistic way of thinking about dilution in general as it pertains to ourselves, to founders. And it's one that I agree with, especially in principle, and that is I would much rather have a smaller percentage of a much greater pie than a high percentage of a smaller pie. And so that's really the way I think about, think about things from a personal standpoint as well. As soon as you get into being a venture backed company, that is a one way street that you start walking down. And that one way street has a predefined path to it. So every 1824 ish months you raise additional capital, you undergo additional dilution, but at the same time, hopefully you're able to continue adding value overall to the company. And as a byproduct of that, of course, personally as well, hopefully your holdings grow.
- [15:42]
A
I have to give a counterpoint just for the sake of argument and you can push back. Right, right before you actually an episode right before this, I interviewed Jared Yama and he's the founder of Boxed. Ended up going to 190 million bucks of revenue. IPO'd. They did the whole thing, they hit it. But you can see his revenue in the, his equity stake in the S1 2.6. Right. So like, and then ultimately the company ended up going bankrupt. He confirmed on the episode he made less than $10 million on this deal. And it's co founder, right? So Henry Schuck is the opposite. Took some info public, still owned a major portion, made him a billionaire. Right. So how do you like, really strategically? Here's what I ask founders, I think it's great if you raise equity, but I always just push founders. Listen, push the Series A folks. Let them let you take a little money off the table. So you know, you're sort of already in the Money. I mean, was that a conversation when you did your series A?
- [16:28]
B
Not at the series A, to be frank. I think both my founder and I are very much focused on the business right now. Know don't have the need to take some money off the table at this point. And so it wasn't part of what we optimize for as founders. I don't really how is that?
- [16:46]
A
Just because I want. I want to make sure. Don't go through your story. I mean, is that a little bit because you sort of feel very emboldened because even though you did give up 50% maybe of your unvested equity, you still made some money when the zero deal happened personally, correct?
- [16:56]
B
Yes. Yes. Yeah, it definitely has to do with that.
- [17:00]
A
Very cool.
- [17:00]
B
Okay. And to my friend, it also is about the belief that we have in the business and specifically the likelihood of the business's value appreciating substantially over the next 18, 24 months. Yep.
- [17:12]
A
You have to have the bet. Right. Coming from the co founder. You have to paint the optimism. That's your vision. Right. I do want to jump into a pattern. We are seeing a ton. Right. So, founder, about my fund. We invest in a lot of AI companies and we constantly are seeing folks go from 0 to 3 million of revenue. And usually we used to be able to bet on net dollar retention and Churn was low. We are seeing less and less allegiance from B2B buyers to any software product. Churn is just generally higher with these AI tools. How are you building a moat at so that when Claude releases their next announcement, you're not replaced by their B2B ERP automatic NetSuite closing tool?
- [17:46]
B
Great question. And one that we think through often, I think it comes down to two key things. So first of all, when it comes to ensuring retention, reducing attrition of Churn, it really has to do with the value that you're able to provide. And one of the things that we optimize for now as part of our sales cycle and sales process rather, is we want to make sure that someone is interested in the solution because they see the value that it can provide and that is what excites them rather than them having maybe some dollars to spend that have been earmarked for AI solutions. And I think in that specific case, that can definitely lead to much higher risk of attrition. So I think that's the first kind of element of it and how we like to think of things.
- [18:31]
A
Can you say what the value is? Because my audience doesn't know when you use the Word value they don't actually know, but they know what it's like to close out QuickBooks every month. So when you what is the value moat you're trying to build specifically for CFOs? Closing out finances inside of Ledge, a popular answer for CEOs like you and I have them on. As they say, Nathan, we're winning the context game if we can convince our customers to connect the most integration. We own their finance brain and it's very hard for Claude or ChatGPT to just come in and win that. But we're seeing some, seeing some contraction there too. Even that's not as big as a moat as people once thought. So what is that moat if you could share it?
- [19:04]
B
The moat really has to do with a very intense focus that we have on actual painful workflows that are a key pillar in how our customers are, how our users do things. And so that for us is the focus. If you think of finance teams, specifically
- [19:19]
A
accounting teams, can you examples, can you just. Can we go deep on one of these?
- [19:23]
B
Yeah, of course. So let's look at, let's look at working papers as an example.
- [19:27]
A
Okay, great.
- [19:28]
B
Working papers are really kind of the key artifact that has to be generated repeatedly every month as part of the vast majority of tasks that would make up the checklist that is month end close. Developing these working papers historically has to do with pulling in data from multiple different disparate sources, putting it in a spreadsheet, running calculations, formatting it, structuring it, and then actually ending up with an output that is then applicable, that can be ported into your netsuite as an example, into your general ledger within your year of peak. This is a process that is quite time consuming, is highly repetitive, and yet doesn't always require the level of experience that many of our users actually do have. And so they view this as something that could easily be delegated away from them while still keeping them in the driver's seat. In the sense of ensuring that the AI is not a generic AI, but rather one that has been built specifically for finance and accounting teams, what that means it cannot be a black box AI. We call our AI output and methodology a glass box AI, which means everything is not just auditable, but is explainable throughout each and every step along the way, which is a necessity for accounting teams specifically. The other thing about it, which leads to a potential moat here really has to do with this intent folk intense focus not on broad based applications, but on a highly specific, highly focused core workflow that is immensely painful and Can Claude focus on that specific use case and try to, To. To. To wage war? Yeah, I, I think it's highly unlikely though for them to do so.
- [21:14]
A
Well, look, time will tell. You'll have to come out on in a year and give us an update on how that plays out. But it's a very active battlefield, as we all know. All right, let's talk a little bit more here. You told us earlier our average revenue per user per month is about 3,000amonth. You said, quote, a couple dozen customers. If we stay conservative and say 24 customers paying that price point tal, it puts you at about 70, 80 grand a month in revenue breaching that million dollar ARR point. Are you guys above that at that point? Is that math accurate?
- [21:38]
B
We're above that mostly in terms of number of customers, but actually also in terms of average ACVs is something that we're seeing to be even higher than ved.
- [21:49]
A
Is that trending up based off your. If you look at your first five customers versus your last newly signed customers or you go on enterprise.
- [21:55]
B
Yes. The more social proof validation you have, of course, the better ability to ask and receive a higher price point. And of course, whenever we expand the product scope, whenever we add additional capabilities, features, they're able to increase the value their customers get. That, that, that of course, is another side effect.
- [22:13]
A
Interesting. I, I won't push you on where the revenue actually is today, the accurate number, because I wanted to save my question for a different angle, which is founders are saying, Nathan, what do equity markets look like in 2026? There's macroeconomic things happening. You know what's going to happen to the debt markets with Powell and interest rates, the equity markets. You're seeing the top five firms raise 80% of the VC money. Like, what does that mean for valuations? Are you, since we don't know your current revenue, are you comfortable sharing a multiple range that you just closed, that you just went through the process?
- [22:41]
B
The multiple range for us was in kind of the mid, the mid. Double digit one, I'd say. And so, and I think that really.
- [22:50]
A
Okay, huge. That could be between 10 and 100x multiples. You mean between like 10 and 20x?
- [22:56]
B
No more than that, really. Yes, yes. I think, you know, still, especially with early stage, you'll see a pretty substantial divergence between public company multiples and what you'll see again in those markets. Second of all, I think whenever you see of course, high growth, whenever you see the path to exponential growth over time, especially given an established market which is ripe for disruption, which is a market that we feel we operate in, in the office of the CFO in general. But even more specifically, solutions tailored for monthly close.
- [23:29]
A
I would just tell you, you're the first, you're the first direct data source that I've gotten recently in 2026 that has said we're starting to actually see multiples back like they were in 2021. I mean, if you traded for more than a 20x multiple that, I mean, you're. You publicly. Yeah. By the way, you're probably also growing really quick. Right. And you've got NEA in your seed round and you come from a very good background. Like all these things obviously combine, but that's a great Malta. So you guys, let me ask you a question. There's a lot of SaaS, companies like you saying, you know what the best way to grow is actually to go roll up all of the individual slow service agencies in this space, go roll up accounting shops. Is that on your roadmap?
- [24:03]
B
No, it's not. I think it's a valid play, especially for a smaller customer base. So for companies that are serving, let's say a company similar to ours or one that's focused on next gen erps, but serving the smallest of businesses, small proprietors who actually do use the services of fractional CFOs, much more so than our customer base, which tend to have. They all have actually in house finance teams, then that would be a much, a much more valid, I think, strategy.
- [24:36]
A
Okay, interesting. Hey, as we wrap up here, I know we're pushing time. You sound like you've just been crushing it since 2022. When you launched, was there ever a moment where you're going to sleep worried like hell, you know, going, man, maybe I have to shut this thing down?
- [24:48]
B
Well, not shut this thing down, but being worried, going to sleep and struggling, going to sleep always. I mean, always the last thing that,
- [24:56]
A
that made it difficult for you to sleep.
- [24:58]
B
So last thing was right before, right before fundraising or during fundraising, actually, you know, process took a little longer than I expected it to and it's, it's hard not to start kind of doubting and thinking through is, you know, are we optimizing for the right things? Are we maybe asking for too much? Is the strategy the wrong one? Should we have waited a few more months prior to fundraising? It's, it's a, it's, it's something that happens actually all the time. Time. Yeah.
- [25:29]
A
Well, hey, thanks for the vulnerability there. Last question here on team, what's the
- [25:31]
B
total team Size today we are at around 35 people.
- [25:36]
A
Very cool. All right, and what's the growth target for 2026? 100 year over year, 300 year over year. What do you want to hit?
- [25:40]
B
300%.
- [25:41]
A
It is 300%.
- [25:42]
B
The classic, you know, triple, triple, triple, double, double, double. Right.
- [25:47]
A
That's three triples, two doubles. Five year plan.
- [25:50]
B
There we go.
- [25:51]
A
All right, Sal, where if people want to follow you as you build here in 2026, where can they find you?
- [25:55]
B
Online, LinkedIn and company website.
- [25:58]
A
Ledge Co guys came from IDF way back in the day, taught him how to be resourceful. Ended up at a unicorn balio payments in 2020, stayed to 2022, maybe half of his shares vested that company. Then after two years after he's he left sold for 2.5 billion going to zero. But he says, you know what, it's worth it because I'm going all in on Ledge. The Hub homepage has digital accountants that prepare your clothes. It's hyper focused. They've got quote dozens of customers paying quote several thousands per month in revenue. They're over a million dollars of revenue. Life raised 9 million sold between 15 and 20% of business back in 2023. Just closed a new round. Stay tuned for more notes on that. But they're scaling nicely, targeting 300% year over year growth as they focus on very, very specific work streams for the office of the CFO and folks in accounting. Tal, thanks for taking us to the top.
- [26:44]
B
Thank you, Nathan. Really enjoyed the time.
- [26:46]
A
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