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Perth-based AI tax research platform SavvyWise has closed a $1.56 million equity crowdfunding raise that has boosted its market valuation almost threefold to $27.5 million since the beginning of this year.
The crowdfunding raise, undertaken on the OnMarket platform, attracted 469 investors in what the company says is the largest AI technology raise of FY26 and the seventh largest equity crowdfunding raise in Australia this financial year.
Half of the capital came from accountants, with 39 per cent of all investors being practising accountants themselves - a strong level of profession-level buy-in that co-founder Drew Pflaum says validates the platform's mission to modernise how Australia's tax professionals navigate an increasingly complex compliance landscape.
SavvyWise, which was launched last year, is a purpose-built platform for Australian accountants, designed to deliver “fast, reasoned answers to complex tax questions, with every source cited every time”.
Pflaum says the investment in the crowdfunding campaign by tax professions reflects a response to a real problem plaguing the sector.
"Accountants are exhausted,” he says.
“The profession is facing a staffing crisis, mounting compliance obligations and a wave of regulatory change including Payday Super, AML/KYC and this year's Budget announcements.
"The level of investment from accountants in their own sector is a clear signal that they want a solution built specifically for them, not a generic AI tool retrofitted to tax."
The crowdfunding raise follows a $600,000 seed round by SavvyWise earlier this year that gave a post-money valuation for the company of $10 million.
In April, the startup raised a seed extension that boosted that valuation to $20 million, while the latest crowdfund values SavvyWise at $27.5 million pre-money.
“The seed extension was from select accounting firms who strategically invested into SavvyWise and became strategic alliance firms with SavvyWise for the development of AI accounting agents,” says Pflaum.
“We consider the crowdfund a pre-Series A round.”
Through the crowdfunding campaign, accountants invested an average of $4,575 each, well above the overall average of $3,321 from the raise.
During the expression-of-interest phase alone, registered interest exceeded $2 million in less than 10 days.
SavvyWise's platform uses artificial intelligence to deliver tax research and compliance guidance to accounting professionals, positioning itself as a faster and cheaper alternative to legacy research tools that Pflaum says cost firms between $10,000 and $20,000 a year.
The company has amassed more than 2,000 users across 200 firms, with 113 paying organisations on its books.
It also reveals to Business News Australia that it recorded a 25 per cent increase to annual revenue and paying firms in the last month alone.
The crowdfunding close positions SavvyWise to accelerate research and development on Australian tax-specific AI models, expand its expert commentary offering and develop AI accounting agents to ease the burden on accountants as regulatory obligations mount.
The platform uses ring-fenced AI trained exclusively on verified Australian tax law, which it says minimises the "hallucination risk" that makes generic AI tools a liability in compliance contexts.
SavvyWise says following the crowdfunding round it already has hired an experienced accounting automation developer to assist with development of AI accounting agents.
Pflaum, a former CPA and accounting firm director, points to what he describes as a $50 billion annual compliance burden facing Australian businesses and a domestic market of more than 37,000 firms and 200,000 accountants as the addressable opportunity.
He has been critical of the 2026 Federal Budget for adding further compliance complexity, arguing it only deepens demand for AI-powered tools that can help practitioners keep pace.
The compliance pressures facing the profession are set to intensify.
AUSTRAC's Tranche 2 reforms will bring accountants under expanded anti-money laundering and know-your-customer obligations, adding a fresh regulatory layer on top of existing tax compliance demands.
SavvyWise counts users across firms of varying sizes, with practitioners citing accuracy and time savings as the platform's primary value.
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