What Tellen does

Tellen (legal entity Tellen AI, Inc.) is a New York-based, remote-first software company that builds an AI-native audit platform for accounting and audit firms, including Big 4, national, regional, and mid-market practices. The company was founded in October 2023 by Deepak Lalit (CEO, formerly EY audit and PE-backed fintech CFO), Jason Jones (Head of Growth), and Paul Gerlich (CTO, formerly Workiva and AuditBoard engineering, with an MS in CS focused on AI/ML from UIUC), and is advised by retired PwC partner Frank G. Hauser. As of mid-2026 the company has roughly 1-10 employees and ~$2.5M in disclosed funding (a $500K Array Ventures pre-seed in Q4 2023 and a $2M Blumberg Capital pre-seed in Q3 2024, plus an undisclosed strategic investment from Citrin Cooperman Advisors in May 2026).

The platform is organized as three quality layers: Quality Companion at the workpaper level (AI agents embedded live in Excel and Word for in-the-moment methodology enforcement), QualityScan AI at the engagement level (binder-wide scans for completeness, consistency, and methodology issues before manager, partner, quality, or inspection review), and Tellen QM at the firm level (a quality management system supporting ISQM 1, SQMS 1, and QC 1000, acquired from Grant Thornton's qm.x platform in February 2026). Underlying technology includes multi-agent architectures (execution agents and quality agents), RAG combining semantic vector embeddings with Levenshtein string similarity, a catalog of standards-grounded agents (AICPA, PCAOB, US GAAP, SEC, Yellow Book, Uniform Guidance), and a free FootNoteDB tool for public 10-K footnote research. The platform is deployed directly inside each customer's Azure, AWS, or GCP environment with SOC 2 Type II certification, integrates into Excel, Word, the browser, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude, and is built custom for each firm by forward-deployed engineers who codify firm-specific methodology into agents owned by the firm.

Tellen sells primarily through an enterprise field-sales motion targeting managing partners, audit quality leaders, and innovation officers at accounting firms, with a 30-minute demo, a 30-day in-environment trial, and hands-on forward-deployed engineering. Pricing is outcome-based — aligned to higher quality and less rework rather than tokens or seats — on multi-year contracts. Named customers include Grant Thornton (also the qm.x seller and a promoter of Tellen QM across the GTIL network of 150+ markets), Baker Tilly, CohnReznick, Citrin Cooperman (also investor and co-developer), CRI, GBQ, BARR Advisory, Perelson Weiner, McConly & Asbury, and Frank Rimerman.

Name

Tellen

Legal name

Tellen AI, Inc.

Website

https://tellen.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Tellen is an AI-native audit platform that enables accounting firms to enforce quality and automate workflows via custom AI agents embedded in Excel, Word, and the firm's own cloud. It serves Big 4, national, and mid-market audit firms with outcome-based subscription pricing.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. SaaS Subscription (Outcome-Based Pricing): Pricing is aligned to the outcomes the firm achieves — higher quality and less rework — not tokens consumed. Outcome-based pricing model where Tellen wins when the firm wins. The pricing model is tied to actual value delivered, aligning incentives between Tellen and the customer firm.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Tellen is an AI-native audit platform that enables accounting firms to deploy generative AI agents directly inside their own cloud environment (Azure, AWS, or GCP). The platform delivers a three-layer audit quality architecture — Quality Companion embedded in Excel/Word at the workpaper level, QualityScan AI scanning the engagement binder, and Tellen QM managing firm-wide ISQM 1/SQMS 1/QC 1000 quality — built and customized per firm by forward-deployed engineers and grounded in each firm's methodology and authoritative audit standards.

Product overview

Tellen is an AI-native audit platform organized around a three-layer quality architecture: (1) Quality Companion at the workpaper level — embedded live in Excel and Word for real-time quality enforcement; (2) QualityScan AI at the engagement level — scanning entire audit binders for completeness, consistency, and methodology issues; and (3) Tellen QM at the firm level — managing quality objectives, risks, responses, monitoring, findings, and remediation under ISQM 1, SQMS 1, and QC 1000. The platform also includes a catalog of specialized AI agents for standards research (AICPA, PCAOB, US GAAP, SEC, Yellow Book, Uniform Guidance), attribute testing, footnote drafting and research (FootNoteDB and FootNoteDB Private), and consistency checking. All three quality layers feed findings into Tellen QM for firm-wide monitoring. Tellen's AI Agent Workforce is priced on an outcomes basis — aligned to higher quality and less rework rather than seat counts or token usage.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Quality Companion AI-powered workpaper quality tool embedded live in Excel and Word, providing real-time quality guidance and enforcement for staff and seniors as they complete audit procedures. Custom-built for each firm by forward-deployed engineers and grounded in the firm's methodology, applicable standards, and prior-year engagement data.
• QualityScan AI AI-powered engagement-level quality scanner that reviews entire audit binders for completeness, consistency, and methodology issues before manager, partner, quality, or inspection review. Flags missing documentation, unaddressed risks, incomplete sign-offs, number inconsistencies, and methodology deviations across every workpaper in a single pass.
• Tellen QM AI-enabled firm-level quality management system supporting ISQM 1, SQMS 1, and QC 1000 compliance. Manages quality objectives, risks, responses, monitoring, findings, and remediation in one structured system, originally acquired from Grant Thornton (qm.x platform) and now Tellen's flagship firm-layer product.
• FootNoteDB AI-powered searchable database of footnotes from public company 10-K filings, launched as a free tool to help auditors research hundreds of thousands of disclosure examples. Serves as a precedent research tool for drafting and validating financial statement footnotes.
• FootNoteDB Private Firm-owned private repository of private-company financial statement disclosures, constructed for each client from their historical filings. Enables auditors to search and retrieve firm-specific disclosure patterns, prior-year precedent, and management letter comments.
• Attribute Testing (Beta) AI-assisted attribute testing tool for evidence validation, support linkage review, and assertion/criteria alignment. Automates fieldwork procedures for control and attribute testing with AI-powered evidence evaluation.
• AICPA Audit Methodology Search (Private Company) AI-powered search and interpretation tool for AICPA audit requirements applicable to private companies, providing engagement-specific guidance and interpretation support directly within the audit workflow.
• PCAOB Guidelines Navigator AI research tool for navigating PCAOB standards and interpretive guidance, providing standards research, requirement lookup, and interpretive guidance access for public company audits.
• Private Company US GAAP Chatbot Conversational AI tool providing instant answers to private-company US GAAP questions, including topic-based interpretation and disclosure guidance, grounded in authoritative private-company accounting standards.
• Public Company US GAAP & SEC Chatbot Integrated conversational AI tool for researching public-company GAAP and SEC reporting rules, supporting disclosure requirement search and rule interpretation for registered entities.
• Single Audit Q&A Navigator AI-powered on-demand guidance tool for Uniform Guidance and federal grant audits, providing compliance requirement lookup and grant-specific interpretation for auditors working on federal award engagements.
• Government Audits (Yellow Book Guide) AI research tool for Yellow Book and governmental audit standards, providing audit requirement interpretation and compliance guidance for governmental and Yellow Book engagements.
• Footnote Research & Drafting AI-assisted tool for drafting and validating client financial statement footnotes, using disclosure retrieval, policy-based drafting support, and precedent benchmarking from FootNoteDB.
• Accounting AI Studio The first generative AI platform purpose-built for accounting firms, enabling firms to launch their own branded AI platforms with pre-built applications and custom app building via natural language. Launched with three US accounting firms as design partners.
• Tellen AI Platform Core AI-native audit platform from Tellen, originally launched in April 2024 as the company's first working product and evolved into the three-layer quality architecture (Quality Companion, QualityScan AI, Tellen QM) with the AI Agent Catalog.

Quantifiable outcome

• 332% ROI and nearly 300 hours saved per engagement using AI agents
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability5 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Grant ThorntoncoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 9 February 2026Tellen acquired Grant Thornton's qm.x audit quality solution platform and entered a multi-year commercial agreement to integrate it into Tellen's AI platform. Grant Thornton agreed to continue using the solution and to promote its adoption across the Grant Thornton International Limited (GTIL) network spanning 150+ markets worldwide. Tellen rebranded the platform as Tellen QM.
• Frank G. Hauser (Advisory Board)minorOthers · 5 February 2025Frank Hauser, retired PwC partner with 38 years of experience including roles in the National Quality Office (NQO), joined Tellen's Advisory Board. He concluded his PwC career on June 30, 2024 after 26 years as a partner.
• Advantage PartnersminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 21 October 2024Tellen partnered with Advantage Partners to launch an AI-powered chatbot for the SOC 2 IT audit process. The chatbot leverages Advantage Partners' comprehensive SOC 2 audit knowledge base combined with Tellen's AI infrastructure. Tellen tested its RAG pipeline against seven AI models using 50 SOC2 questions validated by Advantage Partners, achieving a 4.69/5 accuracy score with GPT-4 Turbo RAG pipeline.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• AuditBoard: Audit risk and compliance management SaaS platform widely adopted at US audit and accounting firms. Competes directly for the same firm-quality, SOX, and audit workflow budgets, and shares several prospective customers with Tellen (e.g., Baker Tilly has used AuditBoard historically).
• Workiva: Cloud platform for SOX, audit, financial reporting, and ESG. Tellen's CTO Paul Gerlich previously led engineering at Workiva, and Workiva is the entrenched incumbent for audit and risk-related document/reporting workflows that Tellen's Quality Companion and FootNoteDB now overlap.
• MindBridge AI: AI-native audit analytics platform serving accounting firms with risk identification and journal-entry testing. Most direct head-to-head AI-in-audit competitor, focused on transaction-level analytics where Tellen's attribute testing agents also play.
• Wolters Kluwer TeamMate: Established audit management and internal audit suite from Wolters Kluwer, including TeamMate+ and quality management modules. Competes for the same firm-level audit workflow and ISQM 1 quality management budgets that Tellen QM targets.
• Onspring Technologies: Audit, risk, and compliance management platform for mid-market companies. Competes for the same internal audit and quality management budgets, particularly at smaller accounting firms and audit functions.

Broad incumbents

• Diligent: Large GRC (governance, risk, compliance) suite used by enterprises and audit teams. Offers audit and board reporting tools that overlap with Tellen QM's firm-level quality management and compliance monitoring use cases, but as part of a broader portfolio rather than an audit-specialist product.
• Resolver (Kroll): GRC software suite including audit management, now part of Kroll's broader risk and financial advisory business. Competes for the same enterprise audit and risk management wallet but with a much broader IT GRC footprint.

Emerging players

• Sphere Technology Solutions: AI-driven accounting and audit document automation tools for accounting firms. Adjacent emerging player that overlaps with Tellen's process automation and financial statement AI workflow agents.
• Karbon: Workflow and practice management SaaS for accounting firms, increasingly adding AI features. Competes for the same accounting firm buyer budget but focused on engagement management rather than audit-quality workpaper automation.
• LogicGate: GRC automation platform including audit and risk management modules. Comparable as a configurable compliance and risk workflow tool overlapping with Tellen QM's firm-level quality and risk management use cases.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/tellenai
• Xx.com/TellenAI

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Tellen