Layer, a fintech startup founded by Justin Meretab, has raised $6.6 million in seed funding to modernize financial collaboration inside startups and scaling companies. The round was led by Emergence Capital and Better Tomorrow Ventures, both known for backing breakout SaaS infrastructure players like Zoom and Ramp.

The company is on a mission to streamline how finance teams interact with data - without forcing them to abandon their favorite tools. Layer’s collaborative platform connects payroll, revenue models, forecasts, and headcount plans in one real-time, dynamic environment. It’s designed for startups that live in spreadsheets but need scale, visibility, and structure as they grow.

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Fixing the Chaos of Startup Finance

Modern finance teams operate at the center of chaos. Critical financial data is scattered across spreadsheets, HR systems, billing platforms, and CRMs. Coordination across teams is often manual, and investor reports are cobbled together under tight deadlines. These issues don’t just slow down decisions - they erode accuracy and trust.

Layer is building a solution that blends seamlessly into these chaotic workflows. It provides version control, access management, real-time sync across tools, and automation for recurring reporting tasks - without asking teams to abandon Excel or Google Sheets.

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Where the Real Opportunity Lies

But Layer’s real edge is how it delivers this functionality.

Instead of replacing the spreadsheet, it becomes a layer over it - adding intelligence, automation, and structure without breaking what already works.

This is the key insight founders should take away: people rarely switch tools out of logic - they switch out of frustration or when the new tool integrates invisibly into their routine. Products that blend into existing behaviors rather than disrupt them are often the ones that scale fastest. Layer isn’t building a replacement - it’s building trust through familiarity. And that’s a product principle every founder in B2B should deeply understand.

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Fast-Growing Market, Deeply Under-Served Segment

The market opportunity for Layer is enormous and expanding fast. According to Gartner, by 2026, 70% of all FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) tasks will be fully automated, driven by rising demands for real-time insights and the shift to remote work.

Meanwhile, Accenture reports that 77% of global finance executives feel their current systems are not flexible enough to respond to business disruptions. This frustration is fueling rapid interest in collaborative, cloud-based financial tooling - especially in startups where teams are lean and distributed.

Even more telling: a 2023 Workday survey found that 65% of CFOs plan to increase their investment in financial analytics software in the next 12 months.

Yet despite all this growth, most early-stage companies still rely heavily on spreadsheets and basic tools for complex financial decisions. This gap between growing needs and outdated workflows is the exact problem Layer was built to solve.

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Trusted Backers for a Foundational Infrastructure Play

Layer’s $6.6M seed round was led by two of the most experienced investors in B2B SaaS and fintech:

• Emergence Capital, known for backing Zoom, Box, and Veeva
  
• Better Tomorrow Ventures, which focuses on fintech infrastructure and next-gen financial tooling
  

Their belief in Layer underscores a broader trend in the venture world: collaborative finance tools are no longer “nice-to-have” - they’re essential infrastructure for startups trying to operate with speed and discipline.

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What’s Next for Layer

With fresh capital in the bank, Layer plans to:

• Expand its product and engineering team to accelerate development
  
• Launch new integrations with accounting, HRIS, and ERP systems
  
• Introduce enterprise-grade access control, audit logging, and compliance features
  
• Build a community of finance leaders contributing templates, workflows, and best practices
  
• Scale go-to-market operations targeting fintech, SaaS, and services companies
  

“We believe finance teams are the next frontier of collaboration. They need better tools - but not ones that force them to change everything overnight,” said founder Justin Meretab. “Layer is here to help them scale - not slow them down.”