US-based AI finance platform Numero has acquired Chennai-headquartered finance automation startup Royu in a cash-and-stock deal.

Without disclosing the exact size of the deal, Royu cofounder Viswajith Vishwaa told Inc42 that the acquisition was a “double digit million deal” despite the startup being less than a year old.

“For a company that is still young and growing like this, a double digit million acquisition on a cash per stock deal is very high by global standards,” he added.

As part of the deal, Royu’s cofounders Vishwaa and Gunasekaran Sathyanarayanan will join Numero’s leadership team. While Vishwaa will join the US-based company as cofounder and chief product officer, Sathya will become the chief technology officer.

Founded in 2025 by Vishwaa and Sathyanarayanan, Royu builds AI accounting agents for finance teams. Its software automates workflows such as bookkeeping, invoice processing, reconciliations, month-end closing and financial reviews.

The combined company now plans to position itself as an “agentic AI worker layer” for CFO offices, where AI agents work alongside finance teams and enterprise software systems.

Explaining the company’s broader vision, Vishwaa said that the consolidated entity’s long-term plan is to deploy AI workers across multiple finance functions inside enterprises, including order-to-cash, revenue management, financial planning and month-end closing processes.

The company primarily serves US mid-market and enterprise customers, although most of its engineering and product teams operate from India. The consolidated entity counts names like Medallia, Doximity and Intact as well as accounting advisory firms such as Connor Group and Uniqus as customers.

On what the platform’s unique selling proposition is, Vishwaa claimed, “There are some old school legacy platforms trying to build agents on top of their platform, but they won’t be successful because we are AI native and can build very quickly”.

He also added that Numero’s AI agents are designed to work across multiple enterprise platforms rather than being restricted to one ecosystem.

Responding to a question about potential competition from foundational AI firms such as Anthropic or OpenAI, Vishwaa said that Numero operates in the “applied AI” layer rather than the foundational model layer.

“What we are building is not AI. We are building applied AI,” he said, adding that enterprise finance automation requires deep customer-level workflow understanding, onboarding and integration into existing systems.

The fundraise comes as AI is slowly tiptoeing into the banking and financial services industry (BFSI). From fraud prevention and risk scoring to document verification and customer servicing, startups are utilising the technology to streamline operations and improve efficiency. 

As a result, investors are making a beeline for the sector. In March this year, AI-powered fintech startup OpenCFO bagged $2 Mn in its seed round led by Endiya Partners. Prior to this in January, B2B fintech startup Mysa also raised $3.4 Mn in its pre-Series A round co-led by Blume Ventures and Piper Serica. 

At the heart of all this is the enterprise AI market, which is projected to become a $71 Bn opportunity by 2030 as companies across sectors automate processes and workflows. 

The post US-Based Numero Acquires Royu To Expand Its AI Finance Platform appeared first on Inc42 Media.